Gauge theories are the back-bone of our understanding of nature at the most fundamental level as captured by the standard model. Despite their elegance and conceptual simplicity, gauge theories have historically represented a major computational challenge in many-body theory - including, for instance, the real-time dynamics describing heavy-ion collisions at colliders, which is inaccessible to classical simulations based on Monte Carlo sampling. These challenges have motivated a flurry of theoretical activity over the last ten years, devoted at developing strategies for the quantum simulation of their discretized version - lattice gauge theories.
In this first part of the talk, I will review the status of the field, highlighting potential applications as well as roadblocks, and discussing the first realization of gauge theory dynamics in a trapped ion quantum computer.
In the second part of the talk, I will show how Rydberg atoms trapped in optical tweezers offer unprecedented opportunities for the realization of lattice gauge theories in AMO systems. In particular, I will describe how recent experiments have already realized the real-time dynamics of the lattice Schwinger model (the one-dimensional version of quantum electrodynamics) in the presence of a topological angle, at system sizes at the boundaries of what is achievable with the best known classical algorithms.
Finally, I will do a 180 degree turn, and show how experimentally-realistic Abelian and non-Abelian lattice gauge theories provide unheralded insights on the breakdown of thermalization in strongly interacting quantum systems.

Zoom registration link:
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/OaSD07rzSR2NEg0d2l0wdg