Highly Excited Ultracold Atoms

这一职业奖支持一个项目，该项目将为原子钙开发一种新的激光冷却方案，并将该方案应用于两个新兴的研究课题。新的方案可以使偏振梯度冷却到1微开尔文，并且应该允许比目前激光冷却钙的温度低1000倍。在与NIST-Boulder研究人员的合作下，超冷的钙原子将被用于改进的光学时钟频率测量。这些原子还将用于密集里德堡气体和超冷、强耦合、双组分等离子体的实验。活动的教育部分，除了本科生大量参与研究外，还将招募当地中学物理教师作为暑期研究助理，并让他们作为研究项目的直接参与者。

This CAREER award supports a project that will develop a new laser cooling scheme for atomic calcium and apply this scheme to two emerging research topics. The new scheme enables polarization gradient cooling to 1 microKelvin and should allow temperatures 1000 times lower than that currently realized in laser cooled calcium. In collaboration with researchers at NIST-Boulder, the ultracold calcium atoms will be used in an improved optical clock frequency measurement. The atoms will also be used in experiments in dense Rydberg gases and ultracold, strongly coupled, two-component plasmas. The educational component of the activity, in addition to heavy involvement of undergraduate students in the research, will recruit local area secondary school physics teachers as summer research associates and involve them as direct participants in the research projects.