Quantum optics and frontiers of physics: The third quantum revolution

Abstract: The year 2015 was the International Year of Light. It marked, however, also the 20th anniversary of the first observation of Bose-Einstein condensation in atomic vapors by Eric Cornell, Carl Wieman and Wolfgang Ketterle. This discovery can be considered as one of the greatest achievements of quantum optics that has triggered an avalanche of further seminal discoveries and achievements. For this reason we devote this essay for focus issue on "Quantum Optics in the International Year of Light" to the recent revolutionary developments in quantum optics at the frontiers of all physics: atomic physics, molecular physics, condensed matter physics, high energy physics and quantum information science. We follow here the lines of the introduction to our book "Ultracold atoms in optical lattices: Simulating quantum many-body systems" [1]. The book, however, was published in 2012, and many things has happened since then -- the present essay is therefore upgraded to include the latest developments.