News

Our recent PRL on the connection between our 2D Quasicrystal and a 4D periodic crystal has been covered in Physics World.

The first experimental result from the Quasicrystal lab, showing the fractal nature of the potential as well as the connection to a 4D crystal, has now been published as an Editor's suggestion in PRL.Quasicrystal Paper published in PRLUltracold atoms in optical lattices are used as versatile quantum simulators to shed light on a large variety of pr…

Two Postdoc positions available to work on experimental many-body quantum dynamics using ultracold atomic gases and optical lattices. Application closes on 31/3/19.We invite applications for two postdoctoral positions on experimental studies of many-body quantum dynamics using ultracold atomic gases and optical lattices. The work will focus on th…

The first result from our brand-new setup on optical Quasicrystals is on the Arxiv.Matter-wave diffraction from a quasicrystalline optical lattice In this work, we report on the first experimental demonstration of an eightfold symmetric optical lattice, realising a two-dimensional quasicrystalline potential for ultracold atoms. Using matter-wave di…

We achieved Bose-Eintein condensation of K39 atoms.We reached the next important benchmark, Bose-Einstein condensation of potassium-39 atoms. Using the readily accessible Feshbach resonance of this species, we can now tune interatomic interactions from strongly attractive to non-interacting to strongly repulsive. We are looking forward to studying …

Today our new lecture course on Quantum Simulations starts in Cambridge for the first timeFor details, teaching materials, and all updates about the course please log into the TIS (Cambridge students only):http://www-teach.phy.cam.ac.uk/

We could observe the (critical) slowing down of the relaxation dynamics close to the MBL transition and our results were now published in PRL (1D) and PRX (2D).In the presence of sufficiently strong disorder or quasiperiodic fields, an interacting many-body system can fail to thermalize and become many-body localized. The associated transition is o…

Our latest work on Interaction Dependent Heating and Atom Loss in a Periodically Driven Optical Lattice has been published as an Editor's suggestion in PRLThe periodic driving of optical lattices has enabled the creation of novel band structures not realizable in static lattice systems, such as topological bands for neutral particles. However, espe…

The proceedings of our Royal Society meeting on the Breakdown of ergodicity in quantum systems has been published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society and contains many excellent reviews on various aspects of Many-body localization (MBL).Discussion meeting issue Breakdown of ergodicity in quantum systems: from solids to synthetic …

We achieved Bose-Einstein condensation of Rb87 atoms.After a little over one-and-a-half years of building we achieved Bose-Einstein condensation of Rb atoms. Thanks to all people who directly or indirectly contributed to this milestone. Particularly we would like to thank our former project students Hendrik von Raven, Oliver Brix, Max Melchner and …

Our paper on Signatures of Many-Body Localization in a Controlled Open Quantum System has been published in PRX.The behavior of an isolated quantum system follows one of two distinct paradigms. It can approach a thermal equilibrium state, where any initial quantum correlations spread throughout the system, rendering the system effectively classical…

New programme grant on Designing out-of-equilibrium many-body quantum systems has startedOur new programme grant on "Designing out-of-equilibrium many-body quantum systems" has started. Together with colleagues from Strathclyde, Cambridge and Oxford we will explore, understand, and design out-of-equilibrium quantum dynamics using quantum simulators…

We are organising a Royal Society meeting on "Breakdown of ergodicity in quantum systems: from solids to synthetic matter"Ergodic systems lie at the heart of statistical physics since they reach thermal equilibrium and 'forget' their initial conditions, thereby allowing for coarse-grained classical descriptions. Recently, non-ergodic quantum many-…

We are currently advertising two PostDoc positions.We are currently advertising two Postdoc (PDRA) positions in our group. One position is in the context of our ERC project on Optical Quasicrystals while the other is associated with a new experiment.The deadline for applications is February 28th 2017.For details see:http://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/12…

Our new ERC project on creating an optical Quasicrystal has started.Our new ERC project on creating an Optical Quasicrystal has started on January 1st. The main objective of this project is to extend the level of control achieved in optical lattices to 2D quasiperiodic potentials by realising an optical quasicrystal.Quasicrystals are a novel form o…