Ultracold gases: a quantum world at the crossing of atomic and condensed matter physics

Freitag, 14. März, 9:00 Uhr, 1A

A decade ago, when Bose-Einstein condensation was achieved in a cold atomic vapour, it came as a nice confirmation of the well established theory of the ideal gas. Since this initial discovery, the research on cold quantum gases has undergone a tremendous advance. It provides experimentalists with a wide variety of tools allowing one to study many-body and strongly correlated quantum systems, with the high control and precision achievable in atomic physics and quantum optics. Atomic motion in the periodic potential of an optical lattice simulates the physics of electrons in solid-state devices. Feshbach resonances are specific tools of atomic physics which enable one to adjust the sign and strength of the interaction between atoms. Quantized vortices in rotating gases lead to physical phenomena strongly connected with the Quantum Hall effect. The talk will review some recent advances in the domain, and show how these cold atomic assemblies can be considered as quantum emulators, mimicking the rich dynamics of condensedmatter systems.

Jean Dalibard
CNRS and Ecole normale supérieure, Paris, France