Captivating and Chilling: An All-Optical Method for Making Bose-Einstein Condensates

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Speaker(s): Dwight L. Whitaker

We have developed a system to create Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) in a time varying optical dipole trap produced by a single focused CO₂ laser. Our system can cool up to a million atoms to quantum degeneracy in any hyperfine states. We have also found that our trap provides a temperature stability and precision that is better than any conventional” BEC system that cools atoms in a magnetic trap. Our unprecedented temperature control will be used probe BECs very near the critical temperature and to gain insight into the nature of quantum phase transitions, which have a number of universal properties and occur in other systems such as superfluid helium and superconductors.”

Colloquium

Junior and senior physics majors attend our biweekly colloquium series, held on Tuesday afternoons at 4:30 p.m. in Shanahan B460. The talks are open to all students and to the public, and are frequently attended by scientists from the other Claremont Colleges, Cal Poly Pomona, and others. The series features speakers from a broad range of institutions and fields of physics.