News: Research Highlights

Thu January 1, 2009

Intense Atomic and Molecular Beams via Neon Buffer gas Cooling

D. Patterson, J. Rasmussen and J.M. Doyle, New Journal of Physics submitted (2009)
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Research Highlights
Thu January 1, 2009

TOPS ?09

TOPS, acronym for Teaching Opportunities in the Physical Sciences, is a program to encourage physics majors to pursue careers in pre college science teaching. The 2009 season marked the seventh year that TOPS has been presented. Sponsored by CUA and NSF, TOPS brings eight undergraduate physics majors—juniors and sophomores from across the nation—to MIT for a six week teaching experience. TOPS participants live together as a group in MIT housing, along with a staff assistant from the former year. The participants work with three experienced high school physics teachers to prepare curricular material, design and practice classes, and then they move into the classroom to teach at the middle school and high school levels. The middle school experience takes place in a one-week class on heat, energy and optics at the Museum of Science, Boston.  The material is then revised and presented at the high school level in a two-week class held at MIT in the TOPS teaching workshop. The high school students come from the greater Boston community. The scientific themes of TOPS are seminal to the research program in CUA.  The PIs and graduate students make presentations on research work in progress and arrange laboratory visits, with the goal of enriching the TOPS experience as well and providing some unique teaching resources.  It appears that  about seventy percent of the TOPS participants go on to teaching careers, and in some cases the participants describe the TOPS experience as having been a decisive factor in their career decision. An article on the TOPS program appeared in Physics Today, October, 2009, p.  8.

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Research Highlights
Thu January 1, 2009

Adiabatic Preparation of Many Body States in Optical Lattices

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Research Highlights
Thu January 1, 2009

When one electron is not enough ….

Most research involving ultra-cold matter has been done with atoms with one active electron (i.e. an electron outside a closed shell of electrons).  New theoretical work by CUA researchers has demonstrated that atoms with two active electrons (the so called alkaline-earth atoms)

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Research Highlights
Thu January 1, 2009

Coherence and Control of Quantum Registers based on Electronic Spin in a Nuclear Spin Bath

P. Cappellaro, L. Jiang, J. S. Hodges, and M. D. Lukin, Coherence and Control of Quantum Registers based on Electronic Spin in a Nuclear Spin Bath, Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 210502
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Research Highlights
Thu January 1, 2009

Microfabricated Cryogenic Ion Traps for Quantum Information Science

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Research Highlights
Thu January 1, 2009

High-sensitivity diamond magnetometer with nanoscale resolution

J. M. Taylor, P. Cappellaro, L. Childress, L. Jiang, D. Budker, P. R. Hmmer, A. Yacoby, R. Walsworth, and M. D.Lukin, High-sensitivity diamond magnetometer with nanoscale resolution, Nature Physics 4, 810-816 (2008).
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Research Highlights
Tue January 1, 2008

Quantum Spin Dynamics of Mode-Squeezed Luttinger Liquids in Two-Component Atomic Gases

A. Widera, S. Trotzky, P. Cheinet, S. Foelling, F. Gerbier, M. D. Lukin, E. Demler, I. Bloch, and V. Gritsev, Quantum Spin Dynamics of Mode-Squeezed Luttinger Liquids in Two-Component Atomic Gases, Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 140401 (2008).
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Research Highlights
Tue January 1, 2008

Phase diagram of a two-component Fermi gas with resonant interactions

The pairing of fermions is at the heart of superconductivity and superfluidity.  The stability of these pairs determines the robustness of the superfluid state, and the quest for superconductors with high critical temperature is a search for systems with strong pairing mechanisms. Ultracold atomic Fermi gases have emerged as a highly controllable model system for...
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Tue January 1, 2008

Suppression of Inelastic Collisions between Polar molecules with a Repulsive Shield

A. Gorshkov, P. R. G. Pupillo, A. Micheli, P. Zoller, M. D. Lukin, and H. P. Buchler, Suppression of Inelastic Collisions between Polar Molecules with a Repulsive Shield, Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 073201 (2008).
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News type:
Research Highlights