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Quantum gases in optical boxes

Nature Physics volume 17, pages 1334–1341 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Quantum atomic and molecular gases are flexible systems for studies of fundamental many-body physics. They have traditionally been produced in harmonic electromagnetic traps and thus had inhomogeneous densities, but recent advances in light shaping for optical trapping of neutral particles have led to the development of flat-bottomed optical box traps, allowing the creation of homogeneous samples. Box trapping simplifies the interpretation of experimental results, provides more direct connections with theory and, in some cases, allows qualitatively new, hitherto impossible experiments. It has now been achieved for both Bose and Fermi atomic gases in various dimensionalities, and also for gases of heteronuclear molecules. Here we review these developments and the consequent breakthroughs in the study of both equilibrium and non-equilibrium phenomena such as superfluidity, turbulence and the dynamics of phase transitions.

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Fig. 1: Optical box traps.
Fig. 2: Quantum statistics in homogeneous gases.
Fig. 3: Sound and spectroscopy measurements on box-trapped gases.
Fig. 4: Non-equilibrium phenomena.

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Acknowledgements

We thank C. Eigen for help in the preparation of the figures and critical reading of the manuscript. We also thank R. Lopes and S. Nascimbene for comments on the manuscript, and M. Zwierlein, P. Patel, B. Mukherjee, J. Beugnon, J. Dalibard, R. Saint-Jalm, H. Biss, T. Lompe and H. Moritz for sharing their data. This work was supported by the EPSRC (grant numbers EP/N011759/1, EP/P009565/1 and EP/T019913/1), ERC (QBox), QuantERA (NAQUAS, EPSRC grant number EP/R043396/1), NSF CAREER (grant number 1945324) and DARPA (grant number 00010372). N.N. acknowledges support from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. R.P.S. acknowledges support from the Royal Society. Z.H. acknowledges support from the Royal Society Wolfson Fellowship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Nir Navon

  2. Clarendon Laboratory, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Robert P. Smith

  3. Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Zoran Hadzibabic

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Correspondence to Zoran Hadzibabic.

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Navon, N., Smith, R.P. & Hadzibabic, Z. Quantum gases in optical boxes. Nat. Phys. 17, 1334–1341 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-021-01403-z

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