Atomic & Molecular Physics

Margaret Murnane Appointed to President’s Committee on the National Medal of Science

09/17/2010

Margaret Murnane, Appointee for Member, President’s Committee on the National Medal of Science

Margaret Murnane is a Fellow of JILA and a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Physics and of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Colorado.

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The Mysterious Fermi Gap

Energy gap (right side of fi gure). Credit: J. Gaebler

In 2008, the Deborah Jin Group introduced a new technique, known as atom photoemission spectroscopy, to study a strongly interacting ultracold gas cloud of potassium (40K) atoms at the crossover point between Bose-Einstein condensation and superfl uidity via the pairing of fermionic atoms (See JILA Light & Matter, Summer 2008). Near the crossover point, the physics of superfl uidity in an atom gas system may be connected to that of high-temperature superconductivity. Read more »

An Occurence at the Solvent Bridge

On rare occasions, a single solvent molecule of carbon dioxide (CO2 , black/red)

Solvents don’t just dissolve other chemicals (called solutes) and then sit around with their hands in their pockets. Instead, they get involved in all sorts of different ways when dissolved molecules toss electrons around, i.e., they facilitate charge transfer events. In research, the hard part is fi guring out exactly how and when solvent molecules get involved when an electron hops from one solute molecule to another. Read more »

Canned Heat

Prototype of new hot-air engine under development in Eric Cornell’s lab at JILA.

A while back, Fellow Eric Cornell started thinking about all the waste heat produced by the use of water to cool refi neries and other industrial plants. In a few places, the waste hot water — at ~212°F — is used to heat commercial and apartment buildings. More often, though, such buildings are located too far from an industrial plant to make it cost effective to pipe the hot water to them. Instead, power plants and other facilities actually spend money to cool their hot water via cooling towers or ponds and then reuse the water — for more cooling. Read more »

More Ultracool Molecules

Artist’s conception of ultracold molecules.

The cold-molecule team is led by Dr. John Bohn (bottom center), Dr. Deborah Jin

JILA scientists Deborah Jin and Jun Ye have done something remarkable: They’ve created an entirely new form of matter! They’ve taken two different incredibly cold atoms at three hundred billionths of a degree above absolute zero and made them into molecules. These molecules contain one atom of rubidium (Rb) and one atom of potassium (K). They are too cold to exist naturally anywhere in the Universe. Read more »

Ultracool Molecules

An energetic (purple) electron in this ultracool molecule (which looks like a tr

JILA scientists are famous for exploring matter that is really cold — less than a millionth of a degree above absolute zero (which is as cold as matter can ever get). At first, they studied ultracold atoms, but they soon started to wonder what would happen if they could link incredibly cold atoms together to make amazingly cold molecules. For instance, in 2000 JILA scientist Chris Greene (and other scientists he works with) did some mathematical calculations. This is how theoretical physicists like Chris explore how the world works. Read more »

Andreas Becker

Associate Fellow and physicist Andreas Becker joined the JILA faculty in August of 2008. His specialty is ultrafast laser theory, a topic of interest to several JILA labs, including the Kapteyn/Murnane group. His wife, theorist Agnieszka Jaron-Becker, arrived in September. She is an independent senior research associate who works with the Becker group. Read more »

Ana Maria Rey

Theorist Ana Maria Rey arrived at JILA on August 1, 2008. She’s hard at work realizing her life’s dream of using mathematical models to describe how nature behaves — in all its amazing complexity. Read more »

James Thompson

JILA appointed James K. Thompson as a NIST associate fellow and adjoint professor in CU’s Department of Physics in 2006. Thompson arrived in Colorado in mid-September. He received his Ph.D. in physics in 2004 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he worked with Dave Pritchard, who was also Eric Cornell’s thesis advisor. Read more »

Tom O’Brian

Dr. Tom O’Brian became the Chief of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST’s) Quantum Physics Division (QPD) on October 5. O’Brian replaced Steve Cundiff, who left the position to focus on his research on the interaction of ultrashort-pulse laser light with matter. Read more »