CAREER: Quantum Gases in Low-Dimensional Rings

普通观众摘要：许多先进技术依赖于超导体等量子材料的特殊性质，在这种材料中，电流可以无阻力地流动。该奖项支持的活动将提高我们对这些重要材料的理解，特别是当它们形成非常细的金属丝时，它们的行为是如何变化的。这些实验将涉及由数千个锂原子组成的微观云，这些原子被激光塑造成电路状的结构。在接近绝对零度的温度下，这些“量子气体”中的原子可以用来模拟电子在固体材料中的行为，该项目将研究涨落、磁化和电路形状如何影响其性质。这一结果将揭示赋予这些材料特殊性质的过程，提高我们使用它们和发现新型量子材料的能力。解决这些类型的问题需要掌握重要的批判性思维和定量推理技能，而这些技能往往没有充分或系统地包含在物理课程中。该项目的综合教育部分是利用真实世界的实验室经验来开发以这些技能为重点的互动培训练习，这些练习可用于提高高等物理实验室课程的教学效率。该奖项的目标是确保每个物理专业的学生在毕业前都能接受系统的“如何像物理学家一样思考”的培训。技术观众摘要：该奖项支持一个研究项目，该项目研究的是具有循环边界条件的准一维费米子系统中物质的量子现象和量子相。该方法将把锂-6原子限制在精确控制的环形光学偶极陷阱中，利用可调相互作用、维度和边界条件的独特组合来实现实验目标，包括表征高丁-杨模型中的自发对称性破缺，测量鲁廷格液体中的输运，以及确定在这种情况下是否可以存在极化超流相。这些实验还将建立用超冷原子创建环形晶格的方法，从而能够研究更不寻常的量子相，包括一些具有拓扑顺序的相。这些实验将为一维理论提供重要的测试，这种配置通常被考虑，但在实验室材料中很难实现。这一结果还将支持将成功的一维理论推广到更高维度的广泛努力，这最终将提高我们预测物质量子相的存在并了解其性质的能力。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

General audience abstract:Many advanced technologies rely on special properties of quantum materials like superconductors, where currents can flow without resistance. The activities supported by this award will improve our understanding of these important materials, especially how their behavior changes when they are formed into very thin wires. The experiments will involve microscopic clouds of a few thousand lithium atoms shaped into circuit-like configurations by laser light. Near absolute zero temperature the atoms in these "quantum gases" can be used to simulate the behavior of electrons in solid materials, and the project will examine how fluctuations, magnetization, and the shape of the circuit affect its properties. The results will shed light on the processes that give these materials their special properties, improving our ability to use them and to discover new kinds of quantum materials. Solving these types of problems requires mastery of important critical thinking and quantitative reasoning skills that are often not adequately or systematically included in the physics curriculum. The integrated educational component of this project is to draw on real-world laboratory experiences to develop interactive training exercises focused on these skills, which can be used to improve the effectiveness of teaching in advanced physics lab courses. The goal is to ensure that every physics student is systematically trained in "how to think like a physicist" before they graduate.Technical audience abstract: This award supports a research program investigating quantum phenomena and quantum phases of matter in in quasi-one-dimensional fermionic systems with cyclic boundary conditions. The approach will be to confine lithium-6 atoms to precisely controlled ring-shaped optical dipole traps, taking advantage of a unique combination of tunable interactions, dimensionality, and boundary conditions to achieve experimental goals that include characterizing spontaneous symmetry breaking in the Gaudin-Yang model, measuring transport in Luttinger liquids, and determining whether polarized superfluid phases can exist in this setting. The experiments will also establish methods for creating ring lattices with ultracold atoms, enabling studies of even more unusual quantum phases including some with topological order. These experiments will provide important tests of 1D theories in a configuration that are often considered but have been very difficult to realize in laboratory materials. The results will also support broad efforts to generalize successful 1D theories to higher dimensions, which will eventually improve our ability to predict the existence of quantum phases of matter and understand their properties.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.