Applied Physics Seminar - Alicia Kollár

Event time: 
Thursday, September 15, 2016 - 11:00am
Location: 
YQI Seminar Room - 4th floor See map
17 Hillhouse
Event description: 

“Self-Organization of Atoms in Multimode Cavity QED and Magnetometry with 1D Bose-Einstein Condensates”

Alicia Kollár

Stanford University, Stanford California

I will present progress in two experiments aimed at using Bose-Einstein conden- sates (BEC) of 87Rb to study many-body physics. The first experiment makes use of light-matter interactions in multimode cavity QED to expand the range of physical phenomena that can be simulated using ultracold neutral atoms in optical lattices. Investigations of many-body physics in an AMO context often employ a static optical lattice to create a periodic potential. Such systems, while capable of exploring, e.g., the Hubbard model, lack the fully emergent crystalline order found in solid state systems whose stiffness is not imposed externally, but arises dynamically. Our multimode cavity QED experiment is introducing a new method of generating fully emergent and compli- ant optical lattices to the ultracold atom toolbox and provides new avenues to explore emergent crystalline order. I will present our first experimental result, demonstrating the differences between the compliant lattices that can be generated in a multimode cavity and the infinitely rigid cases of typical optical lattices or self-organization in a single mode cavity.

The second experiment is a Scanning Quantum CRyogenic Atom Microscope (SQCRAMscope) scanning magnetometer which makes use of a quasi 1D BEC in a magnetic trap as a local probe for inhomogeneous magnetic fields near the surface of two dimensional materials. I will describe the performance of the magnetometer and its applications to many-body physics and materials characterization.