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Center for Nonlinear Studies |
Since the first creation of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in 1995 there has been phenomenal progress in our understanding of the weakly interacting degenerate Bose gas. An important feature of the alkali atoms typically used for these BECs is that their interactions are short-ranged and can be well-approximated by a contact interaction. In 2005 the Stuttgart group obtained the first BEC of chromium atoms (e.g. see [1, 2]), a system which has an important new feature: Ground state chromium atoms have a large magnetic dipole moment leading to an appreciable dipole-dipole (long-range and anisotropic) interaction. A range of new physics is expected to arise from these interactions and many of the traditional theoretical tools used to describe BECs with short range interactions are inapplicable. Very recently there were a number of breakthroughs with the Bose-Einstein condensation of dipolar Erbium [3] and Dysprosium [4] atoms. There has also been considerable progress towards the production of quantum degenerate polar molecules with large electric dipoles (e.g. see [5, 6]). In this talk I will review the interesting experimental and theoretical progress made with dipolar systems, then I will discuss some of our work investigating, for example, mechanical instability, rotons and finite temperature effects.
Host: Christopher Ticknor