Open RQC colloquium. Lecture 40

Abstract

Matter-wave interferometry provides an excellent tool for probing the environment and studying its coupling to isolated atoms. We present several interferometry experiments done with a BEC on an atom chip and in which different effects of the environment have been investigated. First, we discuss fluctuations in the nearby environment probed by an interference of atoms trapped in a magnetic lattice very close (5μm) to a room temperature surface. Here an order-of-magnitude improvement has been obtained over previous atom-surface distances for which spatial interference has been observed. Next, we present a new interferometry of self-interfering clocks and show, in a proof-of-principle experiment, how it could probe the interplay of QM and GR. We also describe a rule for “clock complementarity”, which we deduce theoretically and verify experimentally. Finally, we discuss Stern-Gerlach interferometry and describe it in the context of time irreversibility. We analyze this Stern-Gerlach configuration, which is perhaps the first to follow the originally envisioned experiment with static magnetic gradients, in the context of previous theoretical work relating the difficulties in realizing Stern-Gerlach interferometry to time irreversibility.

Biography

Ron Folman got the M.Sc. degree at The Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, in 1992, and obtained his his PhD degree at the same place in 1998. From 1999 to 2000 he was spending his time as a postdoc in Innsbruck, Austria. For three years he have been a researcher at the University of Heidelberg (Marie Curie fellow), Germany. He has the award by the Israeli center for Science of Complex Systems (2003), the Lamb Medal for quantum optics for applying the field of material science to quantum optics (2011). His main researches fields are Quantum Optics, Atom Chips, Interferometry, Magnetometry, Nano fabrication, Photonics, Spectroscopy, Particle physics, Searches for new physics, Quantum technology. Now he is a founder of the center for chip nano-fabrication and the center for quantum science and technology, editor of book on quantum information, a reviewer for the EC, journals, universities and foundations, a committee member for conferences and foundations (e.g. GIF, ISF).

Please don't forget to take passport for entering to the University. We will meet you at the guard desk.

FREE ENTRANCE.