AtMol Research Projects

Experiment:	Soliton	Strontium	Mixture	Blockade	Rydberg	Molecule	Transport	Slowlight	Polar	Nanowire
Theory:	Solitons	Chaos	Intense	Interstellar	Molecular

Scroll down for an introduction to each project and/or follow the links for further information.

Experiment: Soliton / Strontium / Mixture / Blockade / Rydberg / Molecule / Transport / Slowlight / Polar

	Soliton - Bright matter-wave solitons: formation, dynamics and quantum reflection.
	C.S. Adams & S.L. Cornish
	Solitons are self-focusing wave packets that can propagate over long distances without change in shape, and emerge from collisions unaltered. Bose-Einstein condensates support both bright and dark soliton solutions. The goal of this project is to study the formation, dynamics and quantum reflection of bright matter-wave solitons using 85Rb condensates. More.

	Strontium - Ultracold plasma physics with strontium.
	M.P.A. Jones
	In a new direction at Durham, we are currently developing an experiment which will use ultra-cold strontium atoms in an optical lattice to study the behaviour of electrons in dense, highly excited Rydberg gases, and in ultra-cold mixtures of atoms and ions. The ultimate goal is to be able to control electron transport in an ultra-cold gas at the level of a single atom or ion. More...

	Mixture - A two species mixture of quantum degenerate Bose gases.
	P. Tierney, M.L. Harris & S.L. Cornish
	The physics accessible with ultracold and quantum-degenerate Rb-Cs mixtures is extremely rich due to the unique Cs-Cs scattering behaviour. The measurement of interspecies collisions in a magnetic trap paves the way for sympathetic cooling the mixture to degeneracy and may open a route to the creation of heteronuclear Feshbach molecules. More...

	Blockade - Photon entanglement via Rydberg blockade
	J. Pritchard, A. Gauguet, M.P.A. Jones & C.S. Adams
	We are developing a single photon quantum gates for use in quantum information. Rydberg atoms have enhanced dipole-dipole interactions ~n11/R6 which detunes the doubly excited state off-resonance. This leads to a blockade which permits only a single excitation within a given volume known as a blockade sphere. Confining a dense atomic sample within a ~1 um3, this blockade phenomenon can be used to entangle a pair of single photons.More...

	Rydberg - Multiparticle entanglement of neutral atoms by Rydberg excitation.
	T. Jackson, A. Mohapatra, P. Kalasuwan, R. Potvliege & C.S. Adams
	Using laser excitation we excite atoms to Rydberg states where the electron is on average more than 1000 times farther away from the nucleus. In this enlarged state atoms experience strong interactions which we plan to exploit to create quantum entanglement. Recently, we have demonstrated direct optical detection of highly excited Rydberg states (with principal quantum number n=24-124) using electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), see [arXiv:quant-ph/0612200] More...

	Molecule - Coherent control of the formation of ultracold molecules.
	I. Mourachko, S.L. Cornish, C.S. Adams & I.G. Hughes
	This is a new experimental development at Durham, using shaped femtosecond laser pulses to form ultracold molecules from magnetically trapped ultracold atoms. We intend specifically to generate heteronuclear Rb-Cs molecules. This work is in close collaboration with Newcastle and Oxford Universities. More...

	Transport - Magnetic tranpsort and mixing of two distinct atomic gases.
	A. Tripathi, I.G. Hughes & S.L. Cornish
	We are developing a new apparatus for the study of mixtures using the technique of magnetic transport. The physics accessible with ultracold and quantum-degenerate Rb-Cs mixtures is extremely rich due to the unique Cs-Cs scattering behaviour. The measurement of interspecies collisions in a magnetic trap paves the way for sympathetic cooling the mixture More...

	Slowlight - Subluminal propagation of light.
	P. Siddons, C.S. Adams & I.G. Hughes
	The ability of slow-light media to dynamically control the propagation speed and polarisation state of light makes slow light a useful tool for quantum information processing and interferometry. Here in Durham we are mainly interested in the propagation of light through atomic media with a linear response to More...

	Polar - Ultracold Polar Molecules.
	D. Carty
	We plan to create dense ensembles of trapped ground-state polar molecules at ultracold temperatures. Collision dynamics inside the trap will be investigated to determine the possibility of evaporatively cooling the molecules further to form a molecular Bose-Einstein Condensate. Sympathetic cooling with strontium will also be investigated.

	Nanowire - Mobile Atom Traps via Magnetic Domain Walls
	I.G. Hughes, C.S. Adams, K.J.Weatherill & A.D.West.
	We are planning to create mobile atom traps for ultracold Rubidium via the use of magnetic domain walls in nanowires which will give confinement of the atoms through the use of TOP traps. The use of nanowires may lead to a number of areas of study including surface interactions and the dynamics of bouncing atoms. More...

Theory: Solitons / Chaos / Intense / Interstellar / Molecular

	Solitons - BEC theory and the formation of bright matter-wave solitons.
	T.P. Billam, D.I.H. Holdaway, S.A. Wrathmall, S.L. Cornish & S.A. Gardiner
	Bright matter-wave solitons are self-stabilizing, coherent aggregrations of ultracold bosonic atoms which exist in a near 1D configuration and are robust to collisions. They display a remarkable degree of stability, and are generally assumed to be phase-coherent with one another. The ultimate goal of our research is a comprehensive understanding $ leading to bright matter-wave soliton formation, including both the initial collapse process and the long-term stability of the thus-formed solitons. More...

	Chaos - Quantum chaos in atomic systems.
	P. Halkyard, M. Saunders & S.A. Gardiner
	Cold alkali atomic gases have proved a rich testing ground for quantum chaotic dynamics. There is a theoretical program on quantum accelerator modes (right), a quantum resonance phenomenon partly explained by classical nonlinear dynamics, and of the sensitivity to gravity of quantum resonances in laser-driven, freely falling cold atomic gases. More...

	Intense - Atoms and ions in intense laser pulses.
	R.M. Potvliege
	The theoretical topics in the physics of intense laser fields studied at Durham currently include: The interaction of ultra-short (few-cycle) pulses with atoms and ions, in particular the interplay between classical dynamics and quantum mechanics revealed by the energy and angular distributions of the photoelectrons; The interaction of ultra-strong pulses with relativistic ions; How and why the spectrum of the quasistationary states of atoms exposed to an intense laser field vary with wavelength and intensity. More...

	Interstellar - Atomic and molecular processes in the interstellar medium.
	M. Akyilmaz, A. Gusdorf, S. Wrathmall & D.R. Flower
	There are a number of directions in the field of molecular astrophysics currently pursued at Durham. These include rovibrational excitation of interstellar molecules, shocks in regions of star formation, the early stages of protostellar collapse, and photodissociation regions. More...

	Molecular - Theoretical Chemical Dynamics.
	J.M. Hutson
	Jeremy Hutson is Professor in Chemistry at the University of Durham, and is leader of the Theoretical Chemical Dynamics Group. The group's main research interests include, Formation and properties of ultracold molecules, Van der Waals complexes and intermolecular forces, Dynamics of atomic and molecular clusters, Non-additive intermolecular forces, and Applications of high-performance computing in chemical physics. For anyone interested in finding out more about our work, please follow the link to the Theoretical Chemical Dynamics Group website in Chemistry.