ultra cold atoms

Work hard and pursue your dreams: An interview with Jesús Pérez Ríos

By Isabelle Auffret-Babak on May 18, 2017

We get some inspiration after speaking with Dr Jesús Pérez Ríos, member of Professor Chris H. Greene’s group (Purdue University), about his research and hearing his overview of the field of AMO physics.

$Proposed experimental setup for simulating quantum spin models in atomic ensembles confined in a microtrap array. Two spin states $| \,\downarrow \,\rangle $ and $| \,\uparrow \,\rangle $ are encoded in a single two-step excitation to the Rydberg state $| {n}_{\downarrow }S\rangle $ or $| {n}_{\uparrow }S\rangle $, shared amongst all atoms in an ensemble. The spatial extent of each ensemble is ℓ, the on-site blockade radius is rc and the lattice spacing is a, with $a\gtrsim {r}_{c}\gg {\ell }$. The inset shows the internal level structure of a single atom with the states involved in the detection processes marked with dashed lines. General spin–spin interactions occur via long-range van der Waals interactions between the $| {n}_{\downarrow }S\rangle $ and $| {n}_{\uparrow }S\rangle $ states.$

Image of the Week: simulating quantum spin models in microtraps

By Thomas Farrell on April 18, 2017

A new way of simulating lattice spin models using ultracold Rydberg atoms

Embedded Rydberg aggregate. Four excitation beams (red shades) define focus volumes in which exactly one atom is excited to a Rydberg state (blue balls, 1–4), within a cold gas (green balls).

Image of the Week: An embedded Rydberg aggregate

By Thomas Farrell on March 20, 2017

Image of the Week 20/03/17

Schematic of the experimental setup used at the PG2 beamline of FLASH

Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics: Highlight news

By Isabelle Auffret-Babak on February 15, 2017

Introducing our ‘Highlights of 2016’ collection

“This field of research is…like a terribly fun puzzle” – an interview with Professor Bryce Gadway

By Thomas Farrell on February 3, 2017

Professor Bryce Gadway is the head of the Gadway Lab at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Professor Gadway and his group perform experiments on ultracold atomic quantum gases, in particular relating to quantum simulation. He recently published a Topical Review in JPhysB on Strongly interacting ultracold polar molecules, and we took some time to talk to him about his research and the field of AMO physics.

Diagram of final state of each atom in the lattice. Each site contains one atom in state |±> with angular momentum ≈ ±ħ

Image of the Week 29/11/16

By Thomas Farrell on November 29, 2016

Image of the Week for 29/11/16

Floquet topological superconductivity with ultracold atoms

By Tom Sharp on November 23, 2016

Studies of the kicked Harper-Kitaev model reveal the coexistence of both Floquet
Majorana modes and quantum Hall chiral edge modes at the same sample boundary.

JPhys+

News and views from the Journal of Physics series