J. Clayton Peacock

Post-Doctoral Research Scientist
Columbia University

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I'm a theoretical physicist interested in understanding collective and self-organizing behavior of both open and closed quantum many-body systems. I also work on developing and utilizing numerical methods (e.g. tensor networks, Krylov methods, Pauli string binary encoding) for quantum simulation on classical computers. During my PhD, I explored the conditions under which systems thermalize, obeying statistical mechanics, or evade thermalization through mechanisms such as integrability and in particular disorder-induced localization. I am now working in the group of Ana Asenjo Garcia at Columbia University, studying far-from equilibrium behavior in quantum optical systems - e.g. superradiant lasing in various two-level quantum systems interacting with an electromagnetic bath.

headshot

Research Interests & Expertise

Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics
Quantum Optics, Quantum chaos and integrability; Non-equilibrium dynamics; Localizing, disordered, and dissipative systems
Quantum Simulation Methods
Tensor networks; Krylov methods; Pauli string encoding; Global optimization; Quantum trajectories

Open Source Code

Localization in Krylov Space
Krylov methods for computing local integrals of motion in the Anderson (localization) model
View on GitHub →
Continuous Matrix Product States
Continuous matrix product states for ground states of one-dimensional bosons and Bose-Fermi mixtures
View on GitHub →

Publications / Manuscripts

Many-body delocalization from embedded thermal inclusion
J. Clayton Peacock and Dries Sels
Phys. Rev. B, 2023
[arXiv PDF][Online]
Anderson localization: A view from Krylov space
J. Clayton Peacock, Vadim Oganesyan, Dries Sels
Phys. Rev. B, 2026
[arXiv PDF] [Online]
Quantum many-body simulations with PauliStrings.jl
Nicolas Loizeau, J. Clayton Peacock, Dries Sels
SciPost Phys. Codebases, 2025
[arXiv PDF][Online]
Quantum coherent states of interacting Bose-Fermi mixtures in one dimension
J. Clayton Peacock, Aleksandar Ljepoja, C. J. Bolech
Phys. Rev. Research, 2022
[arXiv PDF] [Online]