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Henry Kapteyn Elected as a Member of the National Academy of Sciences

04/30/2013
Henry Kapteyn

Henry Kapteyn has been elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences, the academy announced on April 30, 2013. Kapteyn joins seven other members of the JILA faculty as members of the academy. They include John Hall (1984), Carl Wieman (1995), Eric Cornell (2000), Margaret Murnane (2004), Deborah Jin (2005) and Jun Ye (2011). NIST Nobel Laureate Dave Wineland and CU Physics Professors Noel Clark and John Wahr are also academy members.Read more »

Margaret Murnane Elected Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy

04/17/2013
Margaret Murnane

Margaret Murnane was elected an Honory Member of the Royal Irish Academy in March of 2013. She was nominated for the honor by Professor Eugene Kennedy, MRIA, and Professor Luke Drury, MRIA. Murnane is a Fellow of JILA and a Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Physics and Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Colorado, Boulder.Read more »

Trapper Marmot and the Stone Cold Molecules

Artist conception of the apparatus for two-dimensional (2D) magneto-optical trap
Close-up of 2D MOT showing how rapid reversal of magnetic fields and alternating

The Ye group has opened a new gateway into the relatively unexplored terrain of ultracold chemistry. Read more »

Celebration of Life and Special Conference Session to Honor Art Phelps

02/19/2013
Art Phelps

Art Phelps A Celebration of Life for Fellow Art Phelps will be held at JILA on February 22, 2013, from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. in rooms X317 and X325. The longtime JILA Fellow passed away on December 14, 2012. The celebration of his life will be hosted by Phelps' adult children, Joanie Gilbert and Wayne Phelps. Read more »

Position Wanted

Artist’s concept of the Regal group’s laser-light experiment to measure the posi

Researchers in the Regal group have gotten so good at using laser light to track the exact position of a tiny drum that they have been able to observe a limit imposed by the laws of quantum mechanics. In a recent experiment, research associate Tom Purdy, graduate student Robert Peterson, and Fellow Cindy Regal were able to measure the motion of the drum by sending light back and forth through it many times. During the measurement, however, 100 million photons from the laser beam struck the drum at random and made it vibrate. Read more »

Model Behavior

The quantum behavior of atoms (upper left) in an everyday solid (lower left) can

Ana Maria Rey’s group is devising new theoretical methods to help experimentalists Read more »

Physicists on the Verge of a Mean-Field Breakdown

An accurate theoretical description of the behavior of a strongly interacting ul

When experimental physicists at Penn State were unable to observe some of the predicted behaviors of ultracold rubidium (Rb) atoms expanding inside a two-dimensional crystal of light, they turned to their theorist colleagues at the City University of New York and JILA for an explanation. Read more »

The Pathfinder

The Cundiff group’s new 3D Fourier-transform spectroscopy technique (modeled as

The Cundiff group has taken an important step forward in the study of the quantum world. It has come up with an experimental technique to measure key parameters needed to solve the Schrödinger equation.Read more »

Former JILA Fellow Keith Burnett awarded a knighthood

01/03/2013
Keith Burnett

Former JILA Fellow, Professor Keith Burnett, has been awarded a knighthood in the 2013 New Year's honours list for services to science and higher education. 
The Knighthood carries the title "Sir". Read more »