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Ultracold atoms

On the ladder

Nature Physics volume 10, pages 554–555 (2014)Cite this article

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Trapping rubidium atoms in narrow lattices provides insight into the quantum mechanics of collections of interacting particles. This innovative approach reveals a phase transition similar to one found in superconductors.

A side-scrolling video game is typically easier to master than a flight simulator. In video games, and in physics, fewer degrees of freedom lend clarity. Marcos Atala and collaborators1 have applied this approach to cold-atom experiments. Their study has uncovered a phase transition with analogues in superconductivity, which would have been much more difficult to observe in a traditional two- or three-dimensional geometry. This experiment marks the beginning of a journey of exploration, involving quantum statistics, short-range interactions, lattices and magnetic fields.

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Figure 1: Currents in bosonic ladders.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Erich Mueller is at the Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA,

    Erich Mueller

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  1. Erich Mueller
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Correspondence to Erich Mueller.

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Mueller, E. On the ladder. Nature Phys 10, 554–555 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3038

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