Quantum materials and ultra-cold chemistry with atomic and molecular gases

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Recent technological breakthroughs in laser cooling have made the study of ultracold atoms one of the most attractive and active research fields in the physical sciences for the last 10 years. The broad impact and importance of ultracold atoms and related technologies were highlighted by the award of the 1997, 2001, and 2005 Nobel prizes in physics. At the same time, interest in cold molecules has begun to explode in the last five years. It is now widely accepted that ultracold molecules offer access to the same science as cold atoms and also to completely new possibilities, beyond those offered by cold atoms, to study a wide range of fundamental and practical questions in both physics and chemistry. The importance of ultracold molecules in relation to ultracold atoms arises from the features of molecules which make them distinct from atoms. These features are that the particle-particle interactions can be much larger, have a richer spatial structure, and have a longer range than in atoms. Molecules also have additional internal degrees of freedom, including rotations and vibrations, absent in atoms. Ensembles of ultracold molecules are therefore a treasury of new frontiers in both chemistry and physics.