Correlated Cold Atoms

The Interface Between Atomic and Condensed Matter Physics

Beginning with the observation of Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) in 1995, in recent years there has been an explosion of cold-atom experiments probing collective properties of matter. Recent experiments have produced superfluid, insulating and magnetic phases of cold atoms (akin to analogous phases in electronic condensed matter) as well as strongly correlated states sharing much in common with the quark-gluon plasma, a state produced at the relativistic heavy ion collider.

At LSU, we are presently pursing the theory of cold atomic gases, with the following questions:

• What states of matter are possible in cold atom experiments?
• How can they be observed experimentally?
• How will cold atoms shed light on related phenomena in condensed matter?

We work on numerous cold-atom problems, including:

• Photoemission spectra of cold fermion gases.
• Fermions in optical lattices and the response to an optical lattice modulation.
• Phases of imbalanced Fermi gases.

For more details, contact Prof. Daniel Sheehy (sheehy@lsu.edu)