Interacting Atoms in Optical Lattices

This experimental research program is aimed at a series of experiments with interacting cold atoms in far-off-resonant optical lattices. The group will create and study one-dimensional and two-dimensional systems of bosons with widely varying coupling strengths and an unprecedented level of control. The first system to be studied is one-dimensional Bose gases, particularly in the strong coupling limit. The strongly interacting bosons 'fermionize', i.e., their probability distribution is identical to that of non-interacting fermions in one dimension. The next proposed measurement is of g(2), the second order correlation function of the one-dimensional Bose gas, using a photoassociation technique. In the strong coupling limit, g(2) is expected to approach zero because of fermion-like repulsion. The group will also measure one-dimensional boson momentum distributions. These are sensitive to wavefunction amplitudes, not probabilities, so the momentum distributions differ in a characteristic way for fermionized one-dimensional bosons and real fermions. The broader impact of the program involves student education as well as applications to quantum mechanical devices.