Society of Physics Students

hbar@phys.columbia.edu

Columbia University in the City of New York

Spring 2008

 7 February 2008

Speakers: Prof. Tanya Zelevinsky

Talk Title: Ultracold Atoms in Optical Lattices

Abstract:

Lasers allow us to cool atoms to ultracold temperatures. At these temperatures (below a microkelvin), quantum statistics of bosons and fermions become observable, and the precision of many spectroscopic measurements is greatly enhanced. Applications include novel atomic clocks, precision measurements of fundamental constants, and quantum computation. We will discuss the ingredients for building an experiment with cold atoms in optical lattices, and opportunities to join this new resesarch effort at Columbia.