Seminar
Tuesday, 15 November, 2011
Group Seminar MPQ: Probing correlated phases in tailored quantum systems
Tuesday, 15.11.2011 10 a.m. (s.t.) in Herbert-Walther-lecture room, MPQ Garching
Dr. GRACIANA PUENTES, MIT-Harvard CUA
It has recently been demonstrated that there are many possibilities for simulating many-body correlated phases using ultra-cold atoms con ned in an optical lattice by means of a site-occupation to pseudo-spin mapping, and a way of entangling this encoded degrees of freedom with di erent lattice sites. In particular, a Mott insulator in a potential gradient undergoes an Ising quantum phase transition [1], which can be used to simulate the 3D anti-ferromagnetic phase [2]. Developing techniques to prepare and to directly probe such correlated phases is of outmost importance.
In this talk, I will present our experimental results towards the characterization of such novel phases of matter by means of Bragg scattering in a quantum degenerate bosonic gas of 87Rb, across the super uid to Mott insulator phase transition in a 3D optical lattice [3]. Furthermore, I will also present our progress in setting up a new bosonic 7Li laboratory at MIT, an e ort which is expected to be a key ingredient for the emulation of correlated phases of bosons and exotics forms of quantum magnetism in the near future. Finally, I will give a brief overview of recent work conducted at the University of Oxford, aimed at developing single photon sources, single photon detectors, and applications thereof [4].
[1] S. Sashdev, K. Sengupta, and S. M. Girvin, Phys. Rev. B 66, 075128 (2002).
[2] J. Simon, W. S. Bakr, R. Ma, M. E. Tai, P. Preiss, and M. Greiner, Nature 472, 307 (2011).
[3] H. Miyake, G. Siviloglou, G. Puentes, D. Pritchard, W. Ketterle, and D. Weld, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Lett. (2011).
[4] G. Puentes et al, Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 080404 (2009); L. Zang, H. Coldestrondt-Ronge, A. Datta, G. Puentes et al, submitted to Nature Physics (2011).