Theory for new cold atomic systems
Person photo Dr Svante Jonsell
Atomic Physics (Department of Physics)
Funding source: Swedish Research Council - Vetenskapsrådet (VR)
Period: 1/1/10 - 12/31/12
Funding: 1950000 SEK
Description:
The application concerns calculations and simulations for three topic in the field of cold atoms. 1. Simulations of antihydrogen formation. I will be a member of the ALPHA collaboration at CERN, which aims to trap cold antihydrogen, in order to facilitate high-precision studies of fundamental matter-antimatter symmetries. I will simulate the complicated multi-step process leading to formation of antihydrogen from anitprotons inserted into a positrons plasma. I will also study the subsequent de-excitation cascade of the highly excited Rydberg states initially formed. 2. I will study universal properties of ultracold three-atom systems. Such properties have recently been verified experimentally by the discovery of so-called Efimov states - a peculiar kind of triatomic molecule. I will study the universality properties as the inter atomic interactions are varied by magnetic tuning of a Feshbach resonance. I will use methods inspiered by Quantum Defect Theory. 3. I will study the dynamics of ultracold atoms in dissipative optival lattices, in conjunction with experiments carried out at Umeå Unviersity. Of special interest are non-equilibrium properties as realized in so-called Brownian motors, and fluctuations around equilibrium. I will use a newly devised semiclassical method to study these effects numerically.
  
Projects (2)
Research fields (1)
 
Antihydrogen
For every particle there is an antiparticle, which is (as far as we know) a perfect mirror image, except that it has opposite charge. Mixing antiprotons and antielectrons (called positrons) one can combine them to antihydrogen, i.e. the antimatter counterpart to ordinary hydrogen. This was done by ...
Cold atoms
Brownian Motors and RatchetsRatchets are systems which create directed motion of particles (e.g. atoms) from periodic potentials giving zero average force. A Brownian Motor is a ratchet where random motion (usually thermal fluctuations) are important for the driving mechanism. This may see to ...