Related papers: Metrology and Many-Body Physics with Ultracold Met…
Improvements in both theory and frequency metrology of few-electron systems such as hydrogen and helium have enabled increasingly sensitive tests of quantum electrodynamics (QED), as well as ever more accurate determinations of fundamental…
We consider an ultracold quantum degenerate gas in an optical lattice inside a cavity. This system represents a simple but key model for "quantum optics with quantum gases," where a quantum description of both light and atomic motion is…
We report on the realization of Bose-Einstein condensation of metastable helium-4. After exciting helium to its metastable state in a novel pulse-tube cryostat source, the atomic beam is collimated and slowed. We then trap several 10^8…
Ultracold quantum gases are ideal sources for high-precision space-borne sensing as proposed for Earth observation, relativistic geodesy and tests of fundamental physical laws as well as for studying new phenomena in many-body physics…
Precision spectroscopy of simple atomic systems has refined our understanding of the fundamental laws of quantum physics. In particular, helium spectroscopy has played a crucial role in describing two-electron interactions, determining the…
Phase transitions, as the condensation of a gas to a liquid, are often revealed by a discontinuous behavior of thermodynamic quantities. For liquid Helium, for example, a divergence of the specific heat signals the transition from the…
Helium (He) is the ideal atom to perform tests of ab-initio calculations in two-electron systems that consider all known effects, including quantum-electrodynamics and nuclear-size contributions. Recent state-of-the-art calculations and…
We have produced a Bose-Einstein condensate of metastable helium (4He*) containing over 1.5x10^7 atoms, which is a factor of 25 higher than previously achieved. The improved starting conditions for evaporative cooling are obtained by…
This thesis presents a set of studies on atomic systems where quantum effects are particularly relevant. These studies have been developed by applying a variety of tools from many-body physics. First of all, we have studied the prospects…
Chemical chain reactions are known to enable extremely sensitive detection schemes in chemical, biological, and medical analysis, and have even been used in the search for dark matter. Here we show that coherent, ultracold chemical…
A semi-phenomenological model of a many-particle system of 4He atoms is proposed, in which a helium atom is considered as a complex consisting of a nucleus and a bound pair of electrons in the singlet state. At zero temperature, there are…
We review recent important topics in quantized vortices and quantum turbulence in atomic Bose--Einstein condensates (BECs). They have previously been studied for a long time in superfluid helium. Quantum turbulence is currently one of the…
For ultracold and Bose-condensed atoms contained in periodic optical potential wells the quantized nature of their motion is clearly visible. The motion of the atomic wavepacket can also be accurately controlled. For those systems the…
We analyze a system of two colliding ultracold atoms under strong harmonic confinement from the viewpoint of quantum defect theory and formulate a generalized self-consistent method for determining the allowed energies. We also present two…
We describe our recent realization of BEC using metastable helium. All detection is done with a micruchannel plate which detects the metastables or ions coming from the trapped atom cloud. This discussion emphasizes some of the diagnostic…
Our knowledge on ultracold quantum gases is strongly influenced by our ability to probe these objects. In situ imaging combined with single atom sensitivity is an especially appealing scenario as it can provide direct information on the…
We present neutron scattering measurements of the atomic momentum distribution, n(k), in solid helium under a pressure p = 41 bars and at temperatures between 80 mK and 500 mK. The aim is to determine whether there is Bose-Einstein…
We provide an overview of the recent theoretical and experimental advances in the study of second sound in ultracold atomic gases. Starting from the Landau two fluid hydrodynamic equations we develop the theory of first and second sound in…
The burgeoning field of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute alkali and hydrogen gases has stimulated a great deal of research into the statistical physics of weakly interacting quantum degenerate systems. The recent experiments offer the…
Studies of ultracold atoms in optical lattices link various disciplines, providing a playground where fundamental quantum many-body concepts, formulated in condensed-matter physics, can be tested in much better controllable atomic systems,…