Cold atoms: A field enabled by light

Abstract

Besides being a source of energy, light can also cool gases of atoms down to the lowest temperatures ever measured, where atomic motion almost stops. The research field of cold atoms has emerged as a multidisciplinary one, highly relevant, e.g., for precision measurements, quantum gases, simulations of many-body physics, and atom optics. In this focus article, we present the field as seen in 2015, and emphasise the fundamental role in its development that has been played by mastering.

Invited article for the "2015 International Year of Light (IYL)" EPL Perspective series (7 pages, 5 figures)

References in corpus (27)

• Many-Body Physics with Ultracold Gases
• Quantum phase transition from a superfluid to a Mott insulator in a gas of ultracold atoms
• Feshbach Resonances in Ultracold Gases
• A spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensate
• Artificial gauge potentials for neutral atoms
• Vortex formation in a stirred Bose-Einstein condensate
• Anderson localization of a non-interacting Bose-Einstein condensate
• Direct observation of Anderson localization of matter-waves in a controlled disorder
• A quantum gas microscope - detecting single atoms in a Hubbard regime optical lattice
• Atom Interferometers
• Single-Atom Resolved Fluorescence Imaging of an Atomic Mott Insulator
• Synthetic magnetic fields for ultracold neutral atoms
• Bose-Einstein condensation of chromium
• An Optical Lattice Clock with Accuracy and Stability at the $10^{-18}$ Level
• A Mott insulator of fermionic atoms in an optical lattice
• Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless Crossover in a Trapped Atomic Gas
• A Strongly Dipolar Bose-Einstein Condensate of Dysprosium
• Bose-Einstein Condensation of Erbium
• An atomic clock with $10^{-18}$ instability
• Controlled Collisions for Multiparticle Entanglement of Optically Trapped Atoms
• Precision Measurement of the Newtonian Gravitational Constant Using Cold Atoms
• Metallic and Insulating Phases of Repulsively Interacting Fermions in a 3D Optical Lattice
• Large Scale Modular Quantum Computer Architecture with Atomic Memory and Photonic Interconnects
• Indications of a spatial variation of the fine structure constant
• Improved Measurement of the Hydrogen 1S - 2S Transition Frequency
• A Quantum Gate between a Flying Optical Photon and a Single Trapped Atom
• Laser cooling and slowing of CaF molecules

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Quantitative wave-particle duality relations from the density matrix properties
• Comparison of three approaches to light scattering by dilute cold atomic ensembles
• Low-cost Wireless Condition Monitoring for an Ultracold Atom Machine
• Bimodal momentum distribution of laser-cooled atoms in optical lattices