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Full-Text Articles in Physics
Effective Microscopic Models For Sympathetic Cooling Of Atomic Gases, Roberto Onofrio, Bala Sundaram
Effective Microscopic Models For Sympathetic Cooling Of Atomic Gases, Roberto Onofrio, Bala Sundaram
Dartmouth Scholarship
Thermalization of a system in the presence of a heat bath has been the subject of many theoretical investigations especially in the framework of solid-state physics. In this setting, the presence of a large bandwidth for the frequency distribution of the harmonic oscillators schematizing the heat bath is crucial, as emphasized in the Caldeira-Leggett model. By contrast, ultracold gases in atomic traps oscillate at well-defined frequencies and therefore seem to lie outside the Caldeira-Leggett paradigm. We introduce interaction Hamiltonians which allow us to adapt the model to an atomic physics framework. The intrinsic nonlinearity of these models differentiates them from …
Environmental Testing Of Lasers For Jpl's Cold Atom Laboratory, Carey L. Baxter
Environmental Testing Of Lasers For Jpl's Cold Atom Laboratory, Carey L. Baxter
STAR Program Research Presentations
NASA’s Cold Atom Lab (CAL) is a multi-user facility designed to study ultra-cold quantum gases in the microgravity environment of the International Space Station (ISS). One of the main goals of CAL is to explore the unknown territory of extremely low temperatures—possibly as low as the picokelvin range!—where new and fascinating quantum phenomena can be observed. At such temperatures matter stops behaving as particles and instead becomes macroscopic matter waves. CAL will be remotely controlled to perform a multitude of experiments and is scheduled to launch in 2016. In order to anticipate problems that might occur during and post-launch, including …
Casimir Forces And Non-Newtonian Gravitation, Roberto Onofrio
Casimir Forces And Non-Newtonian Gravitation, Roberto Onofrio
Dartmouth Scholarship
The search for non-relativistic deviations from Newtonian gravitation can lead to new phenomena signalling the unification of gravity with the other fundamental interactions. Various recent theoretical frameworks indicate a possible window for non-Newtonian forces with gravitational coupling strength in the micrometre range. The major expected background in the same range is attributable to the Casimir force or variants of it if dielectric materials, rather than conducting ones, are considered. Here we review the measurements of the Casimir force performed so far in the micrometre range and how they determine constraints on non-Newtonian gravitation, also discussing the dominant sources of false …