AMO Special Seminar

Manipulating dilute quantum gases to access new physics

When:

March 07, 2016

Time:

10:30 AM - 11:30 AM

Location:

PHYS 242

Speaker:

Qi Zhou
Department of Physics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Details:

Abstract:  Exciting developments have been continuously emerging in the field of quantum gases in the past twenty years. On the one hand, many microscopic parameters are widely tuneable in experiments so that ultracold atomic samples provide physicists a highly controllable platform to explore a variety of quantum many-body phenomena that are difficult to access in other systems. On the other hand, quantum gases are characterised by an intrinsic property that the range of interaction between atoms is much smaller than the average interparticle distance. Such separation of length scales allows one to access new fundamental thermodynamic relations that bridge few-body and many-body physics. In this talk, I will first discuss how to use optical lattices to create new theoretical models for exploring intriguing topological matters arising from the interplay of topology, symmetry and interaction. I will then discuss contact spectrum, a concept we recently introduced, which establishes universal relations to connect thermodynamics and correlations in dilute many-body systems. Such contact spectrum also enables a new means for studying the strongly correlated quantum Hall states of ultracold atoms. I will conclude with an outlook on possible interesting topics in this area in the near future.

Refreshments will be served.