Quantum Gases
Coordinators: Eric Cornell, Alexander Fetter, Tin-Lun (Jason) Ho, Christopher Pethick, Georgy V. Shlyapnikov
Recent developments in dilute quantum gases have raised many deep
conceptual questions; they have also generated great interest in
possible applications of these systems. This broad field has become
highly interdisciplinary, for it now has strong connections with
atomic physics, condensed-matter physics, quantum optics, nuclear
physics, and quantum information. Thus the conceptual questions are
often relevant to several of these areas. One example is the nature
of Bose and Fermi gases away from the mean-field regime, which can
be achieved either by changing the physical environment of the system
(reduced dimension, increased
degeneracy, rapid rotation), or by changing the interaction between
the atoms(such as tuning the scattering amplitude through a
resonance). Another example is the potential use of Bose condensates
or degenerate Fermi systems to process quantum information, a topic
that has recently attracted much attention. On the practical side,
many groups seek to produce(1) a continuous atom laser,(2) an
interferometer that detects changes in the gravitational constant and
rotational rate,(3) a more accurate atomic clock that makes use of
spin squeezing, and(4) more robust qubits for quantum computation,
to list only a few examples. All these applications require
theoretical studies of the fundamental issues mentioned above. The
workshop aims to bring together the most active researchers in this
broadly defined field to discuss the numerous important issues. We
anticipate that the diverse backgrounds of the participants will make
the interactions especially productive.