We observed a new mechanism for vortex nucleation in Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) subject to synthetic magnetic fields. We made use of a strong synthetic magnetic field initially localized between a pair of merging BECs to rapidly create vortices in the …
Vortex nucleation in a Bose–Einstein condensate: from the inside out Read more »
Lauren defended her thesis titled “Topological excitations in a Bose gas & sexual harassment reported by undergraduate physicists” today to a bumper audience in Ithaca. And it rocked!
Synthetic gauge fields for ultracold neutral atoms—engineered using the interaction between laser fields and the atoms’ internal ‘spin’ degrees of freedom—provide promising techniques for generating the large (synthetic) magnetic fields required to reach the fractional quantum Hall (FQH) limit in …
Tutorial: Synthetic gauge potentials for ultracold neutral atoms Read more »
We realized a quantum geometric “charge” pump for a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in the lowest Bloch band of a novel bipartite magnetic lattice [JQI writeup]. Topological charge pumps in filled bands yield quantized pumping set by the global—topological—properties of the …
Geometrical Pumping with a Bose-Einstein Condensate Read more »
The boys of Boy Scout troop 1097 helped Ian out and presented experiments ranging from magnetism to superconductivity at the 2016 Rockville Science day! In the photo, Michael and Camden are explaining an electromagnet and induced currents!
The UMD team got together to celebrate our recent paper “Magnetic phases of spin-1 spin–orbit-coupled Bose gases;” for some reason we went to Town Hall a long-time College Park dive bar. Times were good! Ana, Erin and Dimi were in …
Celebration of: Magnetic phases of spin-1 spin–orbit-coupled Bose gases Read more »
The first Na BEC experiment in Gaithersburg was vented today. This experiment has lead a long and happy life, first creating a Na BEC in 1998, then studying solitons, optical lattices, four-wave mixing, and more recently looking at atoms in …
Original BEC Experiment in Gaithersburg: Vented! Read more »
We theoretically explore a Rashba spin–orbit coupling scheme which operates entirely in the absolute ground state manifold of an alkali atom, thereby minimizing all inelastic processes. An energy gap between ground eigenstates of the proposed coupling can be continuously opened …
Phases of matter are characterized by order parameters describing the type and degree of order in a system. Here we experimentally explore the magnetic phases present in a near-zero temperature spin-1 spin–orbit-coupled atomic Bose gas and the quantum phase transitions …
Magnetic phases of spin-1 spin–orbit-coupled Bose gases Read more »
We study the interplay between large-spin, spin-orbit coupling, and superfluidity for bosons in a two-dimensional optical lattice, focusing on the spin-1 spin-orbit-coupled system recently realized at the Joint Quantum Institute [Campbell et al., arXiv:1501.05984]. We find a rich quantum phase …
Interaction-driven exotic quantum phases in spin-orbit-coupled spin-1 bosons Read more »