STRUCTURES Team

Fields of Interest:
Ultracold Quantum Gases; AMO Physics; Laser Physics; Quantum Physics

Short summary of current research:
Cold atom systems provide a highly versatile platform to probe many-body physics at various scales and dimensions. Particularly of interest is the origin of ordering and phase transition in matter. Atoms of an element like Dysprosium have a large magnetic dipole moment which results in the atoms of this element showing strong magnetic dipole-dipole interaction. With this type of long-range and anisotropic interaction, a modification to the origin, mechanism, and characteristics of ordering and phase transitions can be expected. Most investigations into magnetic dipolar gases so far have been restricted to three dimensions and the lower-dimensional regime remains widely unexplored. The central theme of the new Dysprosium experiment of the Quantum Fluids group at Heidelberg is therefore to survey the behaviour of magnetic gases by restricting the system to (quasi-) two dimensions. We are currently building a new experiment which will produce a quantum gas of Dysprosium with a high degree of addressability and imaging. Based on this setup, we plan to investigate the consequences of dipole-dipole interaction on equilibrium and out-of-equilibrium phenomena in two dimensions.

Contact:
karthik[]physi.uni-heidelberg.de