Ultracold gases articles within Nature Physics

Featured

  • Review Article |

    Ultracold atoms are a well-established platform for quantum sensing and metrology. This Review discusses the enhanced sensing capabilities that molecules offer for a range of phenomena, including symmetry-violating forces and dark matter detection.

    • David DeMille
    • , Nicholas R. Hutzler
    •  & Tanya Zelevinsky

  • Review Article |

    Molecular ions and hybrid platforms that integrate cold trapped ions and neutral particles offer opportunities for many quantum technologies. This Review surveys recent methodological advances and highlights in the study of cold molecular ions.

    • Markus Deiß
    • , Stefan Willitsch
    •  & Johannes Hecker Denschlag

  • Review Article |

    The study of quantum systems in a programmable and controllable fashion is one of the aims of both quantum simulation and computing. This Review covers the prospects and opportunities that ultracold molecules offer in these fields.

    • Simon L. Cornish
    • , Michael R. Tarbutt
    •  & Kaden R. A. Hazzard

  • Review Article |

    Cold and ultracold molecules have emerged in the past two decades as a central topic in quantum gas studies. This Review charts the recent advances in cooling and quantum state control techniques that are shaping this evolving field.

    • Tim Langen
    • , Giacomo Valtolina
    •  & Jun Ye

  • News & Views |

    The properties of quantum matter arise from the combined effects of dimensionality, interactions and quantum statistics. An experiment now studies what happens to ultracold bosons when the dimensionality of the system changes continuously between one and two dimensions.

    • Jérôme Beugnon

  • News & Views |

    Quantum simulators can provide new insights into the complicated dynamics of quantum many-body systems far from equilibrium. A recent experiment reveals that underlying symmetries dictate the nature of universal scaling dynamics.

    • Maximilian Prüfer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The transition from a metastable state to the ground state in classical many-body systems is mediated by bubble nucleation. This transition has now been experimentally observed in a quantum setting using coupled atomic superfluids.

    • A. Zenesini
    • , A. Berti
    •  & G. Ferrari

  • Article |

    Raman sideband cooling is a method used to prepare atoms and ions in their vibrational ground state. This technique has now been extended to molecules trapped in optical tweezer arrays.

    • Yukai Lu
    • , Samuel J. Li
    •  & Lawrence W. Cheuk

  • News & Views |

    Quasicrystals are ordered but not periodic, which makes them fascinating objects at the interface between order and disorder. Experiments with ultracold atoms zoom in on this interface by driving a quasicrystal and exploring its fractal properties.

    • Julian Léonard

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Phases of matter can host different transport behaviours, ranging from diffusion to localization. Anomalous transport has now been observed in an interacting Bose gas in a one-dimensional lattice subject to a pulsed incommensurate potential.

    • Toshihiko Shimasaki
    • , Max Prichard
    •  & David M. Weld

  • News & Views |

    Optical atomic clocks are extremely accurate sensors despite the poor use of their resources. A parallel quantum control approach might help to optimize the resources of optical atomic clocks, which could lead to an exponential improvement in their performance.

    • Simone Colombo

  • Research Briefing |

    Landau’s theory of Fermi liquids predicts that impurities embedded in a Fermi sea of atoms form quasiparticles called polarons that interact with one another via the surrounding medium. Such mediated polaron–polaron interactions have been directly observed and are shown to depend on the quantum statistics of the impurities.

  • Article |

    The high inelastic loss rate in gases of bosonic molecules has so far hindered the stabilization needed to reach quantum degeneracy. Now, an experiment using microwave shielding demonstrates a large reduction of losses for bosonic dipolar molecules.

    • Niccolò Bigagli
    • , Claire Warner
    •  & Sebastian Will

  • News & Views |

    A new binding mechanism between trapped laser-cooled ions and atoms has been observed. This advancement offers a novel control knob over chemical reactions and inelastic processes on the single particle limit.

    • Pascal Weckesser

  • Article |

    The formation of molecules in binary particle collisions is forbidden in free space, but the presence of an external trapping potential now enables the realization of bound states in ultracold atom–ion collisions.

    • Meirav Pinkas
    • , Or Katz
    •  & Roee Ozeri

  • Article |

    Many applications of ultracold molecules require high densities that have been difficult to reach. An experiment now demonstrates the tight magnetic confinement of ultracold molecules, enabling the study of molecular collisions in the quantum regime.

    • Juliana J. Park
    • , Yu-Kun Lu
    •  & Wolfgang Ketterle

  • Research Briefing |

    The collective dynamics observed between Bose-condensed atoms and molecules indicate the occurence of macroscopic quantum phenomena. Experimental investigations found that the atomic and molecular populations oscillate at a frequency that scales with the sample size, providing evidence for bosonic enhancement. These findings could make many-body quantum dynamics accessible in ultracold molecule research.

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Thouless pumping is the quantization of charge transport through the adiabatic variation of a system’s parameters. The robustness and breakdown of pumping under variations in interparticle interactions have now been shown with ultracold atoms in an optical lattice.

    • Anne-Sophie Walter
    • , Zijie Zhu
    •  & Tilman Esslinger

  • Article |

    The study and control of chemical reactions between atoms and molecules at quantum degeneracy is an outstanding problem in quantum chemistry. An experiment now reports the coherent and collective reactions of atomic and molecular Bose–Einstein condensates.

    • Zhendong Zhang
    • , Shu Nagata
    •  & Cheng Chin

  • News & Views |

    Laser cooling of neutral and positively charged ions is well mastered, but cooling of anions remains largely unexplored. Now, laser-induced evaporative cooling of negatively charged molecules has been achieved.

    • Daniel Comparat
    •  & Hans Lignier

  • Article |

    The scaling of entanglement entropy and mutual information is key for the understanding of correlated states of matter. An experiment now reports the measurement of von Neumann entropy and mutual information in a quantum field simulator.

    • Mohammadamin Tajik
    • , Ivan Kukuljan
    •  & Jörg Schmiedmayer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The realization of ultracold molecules in higher bands of an optical lattice sets the stage for the study of the interplay between orbital physics and the Bose–Einstein condensation and Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer superfluidity crossover.

    • Yann Kiefer
    • , Max Hachmann
    •  & Andreas Hemmerich

  • News & Views |

    Controlling the response of a material to light at the single-atom level is a key factor for many quantum technologies. An experiment now shows how to control the optical properties of an atomic array by manipulating the state of a single atom.

    • Rivka Bekenstein
    •  & Susanne F. Yelin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The realization of efficient light–matter interfaces is important for many quantum technologies. An experiment now shows how to coherently switch the collective optical properties of an array of quantum emitters by driving a single ancilla atom to a Rydberg state.

    • Kritsana Srakaew
    • , Pascal Weckesser
    •  & Johannes Zeiher

  • Letter |

    The presence of small thermal regions in a many-body localized system could lead to its delocalization. An experiment with cold atoms now monitors the delocalization induced by the coupling of a many-body localized region with a thermal bath.

    • Julian Léonard
    • , Sooshin Kim
    •  & Markus Greiner

  • Article |

    In bosonic systems, the presence of particles in a given quantum level can enhance the transition rates into that state, an effect known as bosonic stimulation. Bosonic enhancement of light scattering has now been observed in an ultracold Bose gas.

    • Yu-Kun Lu
    • , Yair Margalit
    •  & Wolfgang Ketterle

  • News & Views |

    The observation of quantized vortices in a rotating gas of magnetic atoms confirms a long-standing prediction and has far-reaching implications for the study of phenomena related to superfluidity.

    • Zoran Hadzibabic

  • Research Briefing |

    An ultracold spinor Bose gas was used to achieve advanced experimental control and detection of an easy-plane ferromagnet, allowing observation of the system as it approaches equilibrium. The measurements revealed twofold superfluidity in the spin and density degrees of freedom with very different critical speeds.

  • News & Views |

    A quantum rotor periodically kicked stops absorbing energy after a certain time and enters into a localized regime. Two experiments with cold atoms have now shown how many-body interactions can suppress dynamical localization.

    • Jakub Zakrzewski

  • Letter |

    The quantum kicked rotor is a paradigmatic non-interacting model of quantum chaos and ergodicity breaking. An experiment with a kicked Bose–Einstein condensate now explores the influence of many-body interactions on the onset of quantum chaos.

    • Jun Hui See Toh
    • , Katherine C. McCormick
    •  & Subhadeep Gupta

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A Mott insulator forms when strong interactions between particles cause them to become localized. A cold atom simulator has now been used to realize a selective Mott insulator in which atoms are localized or propagating depending on their spin state.

    • D. Tusi
    • , L. Franchi
    •  & L. Fallani

  • News & Views |

    Experiments with ultracold atoms can be used to create nearly ideal quantum simulations of theoretical models. A realization of a model of exotic magnetism has tested the limits of what can be studied numerically on a classical computer.

    • Evgeny Kozik

  • News & Views |

    Statistical correlations between particles play a central role in the study of complex quantum systems. A new study introduces microscopic detection of ultracold molecules and demonstrates the measurement of two-particle correlations.

    • Christof Weitenberg

  • Letter |

    The study of statistical correlations is central to the description of complex quantum objects. Measurements of density correlation functions of ultracold molecules are now possible through the realization of a molecular quantum gas microscope.

    • Jason S. Rosenberg
    • , Lysander Christakis
    •  & Waseem S. Bakr

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Interactive protocols can verify that a quantum computer exhibits a computational speedup using only classical analysis of its output. Exploiting a connection to Bell’s theorem gives a simpler protocol that is much less demanding for experiments.

    • Gregory D. Kahanamoku-Meyer
    • , Soonwon Choi
    •  & Norman Y. Yao

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