Atom-by-Atom Quantum Manipulation and Detection of Ultracold Fermions

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The main goal of this project is to establish a novel method to manipulate and detect individual fermionic atoms resolving both their spatial and spin degrees of motion.The work proposed here will build on our recent progress that allows us to prepare the ground state of up to ten fermionic atoms in a harmonic trap. This allowed us to study some of the essential building blocks of many-body systems, such as an individual impurity in a one-dimensional Fermi sea, or two fermions forming a spin singlet in an individual double well potential. Within this research project we aim to answer the question if quantum many-body systems can indeed be assembled from such individual building blocks. We will need to establish methods to create multiple such building blocks. This will be achieved by creating arbitrary potential landscapes using a spatial light modulator setup together with a sophisticated stabilization scheme. To probe the state of the systems prepared, we will implement an innovative imaging technique to simultaneously detect spin and spatial degrees of freedom of all individual atoms.Our first goal with these experimental techniques will be to assemble a mesoscopic Heisenberg antiferromagnet from individual spin singlets prepared in isolated double wells. The successful completion of this project will enable us to study a wealth of highly interesting many-body phenomena such as unconventional superconductivity.