Condensed Matter Physics with Ultracold Atoms: from Mott Insulators to Topological Superfluids - Waseem Bakr - MIT

Date
Dec 10, 2012, 2:30 pm3:30 pm
Location
Joseph Henry Room

Details

Event Description
Abstract: Recent advances in probing and controlling ultracold atomic gases have allowed access to rich physics from the realm of condensed matter. In the first part of this talk, I will describe quantum gas microscopy, a new tool for imaging and manipulating strongly interacting quantum gases containing thousands of atoms at the single atom level. I will describe its application to studying quantum phase transitions of Mott insulators and quantum magnets in bosonic systems of atoms. In the second part of the talk, I will shift focus to fermionic systems. I will discuss experiments that probe fermion pairing in lower dimensional systems and engineer spin-orbit coupling in Fermi gases by dressing them with Raman light fields. These ingredients are building blocks for the realization of topological matter, including topological insulators and perhaps even topological superfluids.