Browse Physics

A new model yields insights about fermionic pairing in ultracold gases.

A trapped ion reveals the difference between a quantum particle executing a random walk and its classical version.

Cavity cooling maintains the coherence of the internal states of a positively charged ion, which is essential for the storage of quantum information.

Patterns of ultracold atoms in an optical lattice can be engineered on a microscale by selectively removing atoms from individual sites.

Weakly bound three-body states have now been observed in mixtures of two different ultracold atoms.

An optical-lattice clock based on atoms with spin-1/2 nuclei could potentially challenge the current clock standard.

Monopoles with a single magnetic charge could be simulated in Bose-Einstein condensates

Ultrafast laser measurements map out the electronic structure of a neutral molecule as it photoionizes and breaks apart, leading to new conclusions about the time it takes for dissociation to occur.

New measurements have pinned down the frequency of a long-lived optical transition in ytterbium with the potential for better atomic clocks.

The hyperfine levels of a calcium ion form the basis of a qubit that stores quantum information with high fidelity for nearly 100 ms.

Trapping atoms inside of a submicron volume for applications such as quantum computing and nanoscale optics poses a host of experimental difficulties. One idea for doing this takes advantage of the strong electric field that can be excited on the surface of metal nanoparticles.

Ultracold atoms in an optical lattice share a lot of physics with electrons in a crystalline solid and it is a system that is often much easier to control. By forcing an optical lattice to vary with time, it is possible to engineer the energy of cold atoms and essentially bring them to a halt.

A new method for computing electron properties in many-electron molecules yields better results at lower computational cost.

Lasers can make an opaque material transparent, but to determine how long this state survives, you have to shut off the lights.

Successive and rapid measurements of a quantum system can prevent it from evolving in time. This quantum Zeno effect has now been demonstrated for light inside a cavity.

Tuning the interactions between ultracold atoms leads to a strongly interacting superfluid with properties more akin to liquid helium than a dilute Bose-Einstein condensate.

Atoms subjected to strong optical fields exhibit splitting of energy levels. The same effect has now been observed when an atom moves through the periodic field of a crystal lattice.

When an atom is bombarded with just enough energy to fully ionize it, how do the electrons and nucleus break apart from each other? Experimentalists are now able to study such a four-body breakup by bombarding a helium atom with an electron.

The atoms in highly excited vibrational states of a diatomic molecule can be quite far apart near their maximum excursion. Physicists are now using laser spectroscopy to carefully measure the long-range effective interaction between potassium atoms in these states—an essential parameter to understanding ultracold atomic collisions.

Lasers can confine atoms in one-dimensional traps. Now, the right superposition of lasers can act as one-way barriers that let atoms move in one direction, but not the other.