skip to content

Many-body Quantum Dynamics

Cavendish Laboratory
 

Atom Interferometry - AION & MAGIS-100

In atom interferometry, a cloud of ultracold atoms is separated and the two components allowed to separately evolve before being recombined. Information on the difference in phase accumulated along each path is obtained from the resulting interference. This phase evolution is highly sensitive to small forces and changes in atomic transition frequencies, leading to established applications in gravimetry, inertial sensing and metrology. An emerging application of atom interferometry is to detection problems in astrophysics, cosmology and high energy physics.

Within Cambridge, we are working closely together with our colleagues from the high energy group (https://www.hep.phy.cam.ac.uk/AION).

 

AION

We are part of the AION collaboration that is developing a new experimental platform to perform interferometry with ultracold strontium atoms. In close collaboration with other UK universities, we will use the strontium clock transition to perform high-resolution interferometry on atoms in free flight. The long-term goals of this project include detection of mid-frequency gravitational waves, ultra-light dark matter, and other tests of fundamental physics, see:

AION: An Atom Interferometer Observatory and Network
L. Badurina et al. (AION Collaboration)
JCAP 05(2020), 011 (2020)

 

MAGIS-100

We are collaborating on the MAGIS-100 experiment in the US which is constructing a 100 m baseline atom interferometer in a vertical access shaft at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. Specifically, we are contributing to the design and implementation of FPGA data acquisition systems, computing and networking infrastructure, environmental monitoring systems, and the simulation and analysis of systematics and atom ensemble dynamics for long-baseline atom interferometry.

Matter-wave Atomic Gradiometer Interferometric Sensor (MAGIS-100)
M. Abe et al. (MAGIS-100),
Quantum Sci. Technol. 6, 044003 (2021)

 

The goal of the AION and MAGIS-100 collaborations is to create an international network of detectors to enhance the science reach of both experiments and provide a phased method for technology upgrade and optimisation while building towards larger terrestrial detectors. Cambridge is leading the effort in exploring this networking potential and joint data analysis.

Latest news

Nature: Observing the 2D Bose glass

13 September 2024

Our work on observing the 2D Bose glass in our optical quasicrystal has been published in Nature: Observing the two-dimensional Bose glass in an optical quasicrystal Jr-Chiun Yu, Shaurya Bhave, Lee reeve, Bo Song, Ulrich Schneider Nature 633 , 338–343 (2024). Press release on the Department of Physics Webpage : Physicists...

Individual tunnelling control in optical lattices

9 September 2024

Optical lattices are power quantum simulators with many applications in e.g. strongly-correlated and topological systems. However, up to now, they were limited in programmability since typically all tunnelling links were of the same strength. In this new paper, we show theoretically how local control over individual...

Cold atoms and molecules for fundamental physics Conference

1 August 2024

Last week we had the pleasure of hosting 85 scientists for our ICAP satellite conference on Cold Atoms and Molecules for Fundamental Physics in Cambridge. Many thanks to all the speakers, poster presenters and participants for 3 days of inspiring discussions! Cold atoms and molecules for fundamental physics - ICAP satellite

IOP Joseph Thomson Medal

22 December 2023

Professor Ulrich Schneider received the IOP 2023 Joseph Thomson Medal and Prize for groundbreaking experiments on the collective dynamics of quantum gases in optical lattices, including fundamental studies of localization effects in both disordered and quasicrystalline systems. More information at: https://www.iop.org/...

Postdoc Positions available

1 July 2023

We have two experimental postdoc opportunities on many-body physics in Optical Quasicrystals and on being part of the UK Quantum Technology Hub and developing optical optical-lattice and tweezer-based Quantum Simulators . More information at: https://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/41624/ Applications close on 15/8/23.