NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY: This award supports theoretical and computational research, and associated education to investigate the consequences of light interacting with materials and matter. While classical physics views empty space as truly empty, quantum mechanics reveals the vacuum as a sea of constantly fluctuating fields. These quantum fluctuations are essential to understanding how particles of light – photons – interact with matter. When light is spatially confined, as in optical cavities, these fluctuations become amplified, giving rise to strong light-matter interactions that can produce entirely new quantum phenomena. This project explores how such interactions can be harnessed to create exotic quantum states of matter with deeply entangled components. These states are not only scientifically novel but may also serve as architectures for robust quantum information. A key goal is to understand how vacuum fluctuations and nonlocal photon correlations stabilize highly entangled quantum systems capable of robustly storing and processing quantum bits of information. The research will investigate how these light-matter systems behave when driven far from equilibrium – revealing new dynamical regimes that challenge conventional ideas about how systems relax or thermalize – and explore efficient transport of energy and information through photon-matter hybrid quantum states. By integrating research with education and outreach, the project will extend its impact beyond th