Thomas Bilitewski - Theoretical Quantum Physics

Thomas Bilitewski

Thomas Bilitewski, PhD

Assistant Professor
Stillwater, OK

Office: 248 Physical Sciences
Email: thomas.bilitewski@okstate.edu

ORCID: 0000-0002-9971-1835
Arxiv: Article list
Group Page: Lab Website
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About me

I am an Assistant Professor of Physics at Oklahoma State University, leading a Theoretical Quantum Science group. My group works at the intersection of atomic-molecular-optical (AMO) and condensed matter theory, broadly investigating quantum many-body physics, quantum simulation, and entanglement generation.

A driving motivation of our theoretical work is to provide insightful explanations for experimental results and actionable proposals for the exploration of fundamental physics. We maintain close collaborations with leading experimental groups, and our work is guided by novel experimental capabilities in ultracold atomic and molecular platforms. Current research focuses on squeezing phase transitions and quantum metrology, quantum many-body scars and ergodicity breaking, topological phenomena in dipolar systems, and spatio-temporal control of quantum dynamics.

Before joining OSU, I held postdoctoral positions at JILA (CU Boulder) in the group of Ana Maria Rey, and at the Max Planck Institute for Complex Systems (Dresden) working with Roderich Moessner. I received my PhD from the University of Cambridge (Trinity College) under the supervision of Nigel Cooper, and did my Bachelors and Masters at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany.

Our group is currently funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Funding

  • AFOSR DEPSCOR Grant (2025–2028) — "Spatio-temporal Control in Long-Range Interacting Quantum Systems." PI: T. Bilitewski (OSU), Co-PI: G. Biedermann (OU). $600,000. Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
  • NSF NRT Award (2025–2030) — "Accelerating Transdisciplinary Training of an Oklahoma Workforce for the Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Revolution (ATTAQ)." Co-PI. $3,000,000. National Science Foundation.

Recent News

New Preprints
Late 2025

Three new preprints from our group and collaborators: 'Observation of phase memory and dynamical phase transitions in spinor gases' (arXiv:2511.03720), 'Lattice-enabled detection of spin-dependent three-body interactions' (arXiv:2510.01158), and 'Polarization-dependent chiral transport and chiral solitons in spin Kitaev models' (arXiv:2508.17084).

Arman Duha Thesis Defense
November 2025

Congratulations to Arman on successfully defending his thesis on 'NON-EQUILIBRIUM ENTANGLEMENT DYNAMICS AND TRANSPORT IN ENGINEERED QUANTUM SYSTEMS'.

PRL Publication
October 2025

Our work on 'Nonequilibrium Critical Scaling of a Squeezing Phase Transition' was published in Physical Review Letters.

$600k AFOSR Grant
October 2025

Awarded $600k AFOSR Grant on 'Spatio-temporal Control in long-range interacting Quantum Systems'.

$3M NSF NRT Grant
August 2025

Awarded $3M NSF NRT Grant 'Accelerating Transdisciplinary Training of an Oklahoma Workforce for the Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Revolution '.

PRL Publication
April 2025

Our work on 'Quantum Many-Body Scars' in Spinor BECs in collaboration with the group of Dr Yingmei Liu was published in Physical Review Letters.

Research Highlights

Featured
Squeezing Phase Transitions

Squeezing Phase Transitions

PRL

Squeezing Phase Transitions and Entanglement Generation

Featured
Quantum Many-Body Scars

Quantum Many-Body Scars

PRL

Ergodicity Breaking and Quantum Many-Body Scars

Featured
Emergent Topology in Spin Ladders

Emergent Topology in Spin Ladders

PRR

Emergent Topology and Dipolar Spin Ladders

Featured
Hydrodynamics in Spin Systems

Hydrodynamics in Spin Systems

PRB

Anomalous Hydrodynamics, KPZ Scaling and Solitons in the classical Heisenberg Chain

Featured
Pauli Blocking and Cooperative Effects

Pauli Blocking and Cooperative Effects

PRL

Pauli blocking and cooperative effects in 2D Fermi gases

Featured
Dipolar Molecules and Squeezing

Dipolar Molecules and Squeezing

PRL

Metrology and squeezing in two-dimensional dipolar molecular Fermi gases

Featured
SU(N) Fermi Gases

SU(N) Fermi Gases

Nature Physics

Understanding the thermodynamics of a SU(N) Fermi Gas

Featured
Chaos across Phase Transitions

Chaos across Phase Transitions

PRB

Chaos, the butterfly effect and quasi-particles across thermal phase transitions

Featured
Chaos and Butterfly effect

Chaos and Butterfly effect

PRL

Chaos and the butterfly effect in a classical many-body spin system

Featured
Spin Liquids and Disorder

Spin Liquids and Disorder

PRL

New type of spin liquid in the bond-disordered Kagome-Antiferromagnet arrising from the interplay of disorder and geometric frustration

Featured
Flat Bands and Disorder

Flat Bands and Disorder

Editors' suggestion

Exactly degenerate Flat Bands in presence of disorder on the Kagome lattice

Featured
Floquet Engineering and Heating

Floquet Engineering and Heating

PRA

Heating in interacting Floquet-engineered quantum systems

Featured
Synthetic Dimensions

Synthetic Dimensions

PRA

Interactions and pair-superfluidity in synthetic dimensions