Author: cqs

Presentations

Updated on 07/30/2012

 

2012

  1. Contributed talk: P.Nikolic, Charge and spin fractionalization in strongly correlated topological insulators, APS March Meeting, Boston
  2. Invited talk: I.Satija, Dark and Bright Solitons in Strongly Repulsive BEC, International Conference in Non-linear Systems, Puebla, Mexico
  3. Invited talk: I.Satija, Topological Insulators in ultracold setting, University of Massachusetts

2011

  1. Invited talk: P.Nikolic, Charge and spin fractionalization in strongly correlated topological insulators, Condensed Matter Physics Seminar, Johns Hopkins University
  2. Invited talk: P.Nikolic, Theory of correlated superconductors: s- vs. d-wave, Colloquium of the Computational Materials Science Center, George Mason University
  3. Contributed talk: P.Nikolic, Unitarity in periodic potentials and correlated s-wave Cooper pair insulators, APS March Meeting, Dallas
  4. Invited talk: I.Satija, Topological Insulators in ultracold setting, New Delhi, India
  5. Invited talk: I.Satija, Bunching-Antibunching of Quantum Particles: From Astronomy to AMO, George Mason University
  6. Invited talk: I.Satija, Chern Numbers Hiding in Time of Flight Images, JILA
  7. Invited talk: I.Satija, Dark and Bright Solitons in Strongly Repulsive BEC, University of Colorado
  8. Invited talk: I.Satija, Quantum Phase Transitions, Entanglement and Quantum Noise Interferometry in Ultracold Atoms, University of Ljubljana
  9. Invited talk: I.Satija, Chern Numbers Hiding in Momentum Distribution, The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, India
  10. Contributed talk: M.W. Malone, K.L.Sauer, Homonuclear dipolar coupling and CPMG spin-echoes in NQR, Workshop on Magnetic Resonance Detection of Explosives and Illicit Substances, Istanbul, Turkey
  11. Invited talk: K.L.Sauer, Alternative sources of magnetization, Chemistry and Biochemistry Seminar, George Mason University

2010

  1. Invited talk: P.Nikolic, Theory of correlated superconductors: s- vs. d-wave, Institute for Quantum Matter (Advisory Committee event), Johns Hopkins University
  2. Invited talk: P.Nikolic, Unitarity in periodic potentials and Cooper pair insulators, Nordita workshop “Quantum solids, liquids, and gases” (Stockholm, Sweden)
  3. Invited talk: I.Satija, Fun with Solitons, NIST
  4. Invited talk: I.Satija, Dark and Bright Solitons in Strongly Repulsive BEC, UMD
  5. Invited talk: I.Satija, Engineering Time-Reversal Topological Insulators with Ultracold Atoms, NIST
  6. Invited talk: I.Satija, Dark and Bright Solitons in strongly interacting BEC, Puebla, Mexico
  7. Invited talk: I.Satija, Time-Reversal Topological Insulators with Ultracold Atoms, International conference on cold atoms, Sankarpur, Kolkata, India
  8. Invited talk: K.L.Sauer, Exploiting alternative sources of magnetization, Colloquium, Amherst College
  9. Invited talk: K.L.Sauer, Ultra-sensitive atomic magnetometry and NMR echo trains, Colloquium, University of William and Mary

2009

  1. Invited talk: P.Nikolic, Strongly correlated Cooper pair insulators and superfluids, Condensed Matter Theory Center seminar, University of Maryland
  2. Invited talk: P.Nikolic, Superconductivity in strongly coupled multi-band systems, Institute for Quantum Matter seminar, Johns Hopkins University
  3. Contributed talk: P.Nikolic, Pairing Instability in 2D Rotating Fermion Liquids Near Unitarity, APS March Meeting, Pittsburgh
  4. Contributed talk: P.Nikolic, Two-dimensional FFLO vortex lattices and vortex liquids, APS DAMOP Meeting, Charlottesville
  5. Invited talk: I.Satija, Particle-hole asymmety and Brightening of Solitons in strongly interacting BEC, NIST
  6. Invited talk: I.Satija, BEC Mixture in a double well: Two species that may or may not get along, International conference in nonlinear systems, Puebla, Mexico
  7. Invited talk: K.L.Sauer, Ultra-sensitive atomic magnetometry and NMR echo trains, Colloquium, Kansas State University
  8. Invited talk: K.L.Sauer, Bringing NQR echoes into focus, Colloquium, Princeton University
  9. Contributed talk: O.Alem, M.V. Romalis, K.L.Sauer, Spin-damping in an RF atomic magnetometer, APS DAMOP Meeting, Charlottesville

2008

  1. Invited talk: I.Satija, Controlling the Quantum World, SIES college, Mumbai, India
  2. Invited talk: I.Satija, Bunching-Antibunching of Quantum Particles, Bombay University, Mumbai, India
  3. Invited talk: K.L.Sauer, The many faces of double resonance: from nuclear cross relaxation to RF magnetometery in explosives detection, EUROMAR Magnetic Resonance Conference, St. Petersburg, Russia

2007

  1. Invited talk: K.L.Sauer, S-K Lee, S.Seltzer, M.V.Romalis, and O.Alem, Detecting explosives with an NQR-integrated magnetometer, Gordon Research Conference on Detecting Illicit Substances: Explosives and Drugs, Big Sky
  2. Invited talk: K.L.Sauer, Detection of explosives using nuclear quadrupole resonance, APS Mid-Atlantic Senior Physicist Group, American Center for Physics, Maryland

Publications

Papers

Updated on 07/30/2012

 

2012

  1. S. G. Bhongale, L. Mathey, Shan-Wen Tsai, Charles W. Clark and Erhai Zhao, Bond Order Solid of Two-Dimensional Dipolar Fermions, Physical Review Letters 108, 145301 (2012).
  2. Predrag Nikolić, An effective theory of fractional topological insulators in two spatial dimensions, unpublished (2012). arXiv:1206.1055
  3. Chester P. Rubbo, Indubala I. Satija, William P. Reinhardt, Radha Balakrishnan, Ana Maria Rey and Salvatore R. Manmana, Quantum Dynamics of Solitons in Strongly Interacting Systems on Optical Lattices, to be published in Physical Review A (2012)
  4. Indubala I. Satija and Erhai Zhao, Topological insulators with ultracold atoms, Conference proceeding for cdamop2011 (Current development in atomic, molecular and optical physics), New Delhi, India, to be published as a book chapter in Springer Verlag series (2012). arXiv:1201.1458
  5. Kai He, Indubala I. Satija, Charles Clark, Ana Maria Rey and Marcos Rigol, Noise Correlation Scalings: Revisiting the Quantum Phase Transitions in Incommensurate Lattices with Hard-Core Bosons, Physical Review A 85, 013617 (2012).
  6. M. W. Malone and K. L. Sauer, Homonuclear Dipolar Coupling and CPMG Spin-Echoes in NQR, to be published in Applied Magnetic Resonance (2012).
  7. Xiao-Yu Chen, Ping Yu, Li-Zhen Jiang and Mingzhen Tian, Genuine Entanglement of Four Qubit Cluster Diagonal States, unpublished (2012). arXiv:1204.5512
  8. Xiao-Yu Chen, Li-Zhen Jiang, Ping Yu and Mingzhen Tian, Total and genuine entanglement of three qubit GHZ diagonal states, unpublished (2012). arXiv:1204.5511

2011

  1. Philipp Hauke, Erhai Zhao, Krittika Goyal, Ivan H. Deutsch, W. Vincent Liu and Maciej Lewenstein, Orbital order of spinless fermions near an optical Feshbach resonance, Physical Review A 84, 051603(R) (2011).
  2. Xiaopeng Li, Erhai Zhao and W. Vincent Liu, Effective action approach to the p-band Mott insulator and superfluid transition, Physical Review A 83, 063626 (2011).
  3. Mahmoud Lababidi and Erhai Zhao, Microscopic simulation of superconductor/topological insulator proximity structures, Physical Review B 83, 184511 (2011).
  4. Predrag Nikolić, Tanja Duric and Zlatko Tešanović, Correlated topological insulators of Cooper pairs induced by proximity effect, unpublished (2011). arXiv:1109.0017
  5. Predrag Nikolić, Charge and spin fractionalization in strongly correlated topological insulators, unpublished (2011). arXiv:1108.5388
  6. Rong Yu, Pallab Goswami, Qimiao Si, Predrag Nikolić and Jian-Xin Zhu, Pairing strength and symmetries of (K,Tl)FexSe2 in comparison with iron pnictides, unpublished (2011). arXiv:1103.3259
  7. Predrag Nikolić and Zlatko Tešanović, Cooper pair insulators and theory of correlated superconductors, Physical Review B 83, 064501 (2011).
  8. Predrag Nikolić, Unitarity in periodic potentials: a renormalization group analysis, Physical Review B 83, 064523 (2011).
  9. Valentin Stanev, Boian S. Alexandrov, Predrag Nikolić and Zlatko Tešanović, Robust accidental nodes and zeroes and critical quasiparticle scaling in iron-based multiband superconductors, Physical Reviev B 84, 014505 (2011).
  10. Erhai Zhao, Noah Bray-Ali, C. Williams, Ian Spielman and Indubala I. Satija, Chern Numbers hiding in time of flight Images, Physical Review A 84, 063629 (2011).
  11. William Reinhardt, Indubala Satija, Bryce Robbins and Charles Clark, Bright and Dark Soliton and Breathers in a Strongly Repulsive BEC, unpublished (2011). arXiv:1102.4042
  12. Indubala I. Satija and Radha Balakrishnan, Other Incarnations of The Gross-Pitaevskii Dark Soliton, Physics Letters A 375, 517 (2011).
  13. T. Frolov and Y. Mishin, Liquid nucleation at superheated grain boundaries, Physical Review Letters 106, 155702 (2011).
  14. T. Frolov and Y. Mishin, Stable nanocolloidal structures in metallic systems, Physical Review Letters 104, 055701 (2011).
  15. M. W. Malone, M. McGillvray and K. L. Sauer, Revealing dipolar coupling with NQR off-resonant pulsed spin locking, Physical Review B 84, 214430 (2011).
  16. K. L. Sauer, C. A. Klug, J. B. Miller, and J. P. Yesinowski, Optically pumped InP: Nuclear polarization from NMR frequency shifts, Physical Review B 84, 085202 (2011).
  17. Mingzhen Tian, Tiejun Chang, Kristian D. Merkel and W. Randall, Reconfiguration of spectral absorption features using a frequency-chirped laser pulse, Applied Optics 50, 6548 (2011).
  18. J. T. Thomas, Mahmoud Lababidi and Mingzhen Tian, Robustness of single-qubit geometric gate against systematic error, Physical Review A 84, 042335 (2011).

2010

  1. Erhai Zhao, Chun Zhang and Mahmoud Lababidi, Mott scattering at the interface between a metal and a topological insulator, Physical Review B 82, 205331 (2010).
  2. Chungwei Lin, Erhai Zhao and W. Vincent Liu, Liquid crystal phases of ultracold dipolar fermions on a lattice, Physical Review B 81, 045115 (2010).
  3. Kai Sun, Erhai Zhao and W. Vincent Liu, Topological Phases of Dipolar Particles in Elongated Wannier Orbitals, Physical Review Letters 104, 165303 (2010).
  4. Erhai Zhao and W. Vincent Liu, An effective field theory for one-dimensional polarized Fermi gases, Journal of Low Temperature Physics 158, 36 (2010).
  5. N. Goldman, I. Satija, P. Nikolić, A. Bermudez, M. A. Martin-Delgado, M. Lewenstein and I. B. Spielman, Realistic Time-Reversal Invariant Topological Insulators With Neutral Atoms, Physical Review Letters 105, 255302 (2010).
  6. Predrag Nikolić, A. A. Burkov and Arun Paramekanti, Finite momentum pairing instability of band insulators with multiple bands, Physical Review B 81, 012504 (2010).
  7. Predrag Nikolić, A. A. Burkov and Arun Paramekanti, Pair density wave instability and Cooper pair insulators in gapped fermion systems, Proceedings of the International Conference on Strongly Correlated Electron Systems, Santa Fe; Journal of Physics: Conference Series 273, 012012 (2011).
  8. Pallab Goswami, Predrag Nikolić and Qimiao Si, Superconductivity in Multi-orbital t-J1-J2 Model and its Implications for Iron Pnictides, Europhysics Letters 91, 37006 (2010).
  9. Predrag Nikolić, Phase diagram of two-dimensional fast-rotating ultracold fermionic atoms near unitarity, Physical Review A 81, 023601 (2010).
  10. Shuming Li, Indubala I. Satija, Charles W. Clark and Ana Maria Rey, Exploring Complex Phenomena using ultracold atoms in bichromatic lattices, Physical Review E 82, 016217, (2010).
  11. F. Apostol and Y. Mishin, Angular-dependent interatomic potential for the aluminum-hydrogen system, Physical Reviev B 82, 144115 (2010).
  12. G. P. Purja Pun and Y. Mishin, Molecular dynamics simulation of the martensitic phase transformation in NiAl alloys, Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter 22, 395403 (2010).
  13. Y. Mishin and W. J. Boettinger, Thermodynamic model of hydride formation and dissolution in spherical particles, Acta Materialia 58, 4968 (2010).
  14. Y. Mishin, M. Asta and Ju Li, Atomistic modeling of interfaces and their impact on microstructure and properties, Acta Materialia 58, 1117 (2010).

2009

  1. Erhai Zhao, Xi-Wen Guan, W. Vincent Liu, M. T. Batchelor and Masaki Oshikawa, Analytic thermodynamics and thermometry of Gaudin-Yang Fermi gases, Physical Review Letters 103, 140404 (2009).
  2. Predrag Nikolić, Two-dimensional fermionic superfluids, pairing instability, and vortex liquids in the absence of time reversal symmetry, Physical Review B 79, 144507 (2009).
  3. Radha Balakrishnan, Indubala Satija and Charles Clark, Particle-hole Asymmetry and Brightening of Soliton in a Strongly Repulsive BEC, Physical Review Letters 103, 230403 (2009).
  4. Indubala I. Satija and Radha Balakrishnan, Geometric phases in twisted strips, Physics Letters A 373, 3582 (2009).
  5. Indubala I. Satija, Radha Balakrishnan, Philip Naudus, Jeffrey Heward, Mark Edward and Charles W. Clark, Symmetry Breaking and Symmetry-Restoring Dynamics of a Mixture of Bose-Einstein Condensates in a Double well, Physical Review A 79, 033616 (2009).
  6. Florian Mintert, Ana Maria Rey, Indubala I. Satija and Charles W. Clark, Phase Transitions, Entanglement and Quantum Noise Interferometry in Cold Atoms, Europhysics Letters 86, 17003 (2009)
  7. G. P. Purja Pun and Y. Mishin, A molecular dynamics study of self-diffusion in the cores of screw and edge dislocations in aluminum, Acta Materialia 57, 5531 (2009).
  8. T. Frolov and Y. Mishin, Molecular dynamics modeling of self-diffusion along a triple junction, Physical Reviev B 79, 174110 (2009).
  9. Y. Mishin, W. J. Boettinger, J. A. Warren and G. B. McFadden, Thermodynamics of grain boundary premelting in alloys. I. Phase-field modeling, Acta Materialia 57, 3771 (2009).
  10. T. Frolov and Y. Mishin, Temperature dependence of the surface free energy and surface stress: An atomistic calculation for Cu(110), Physical Review B 79, 045430 (2009).
  11. J. B. Miller, K. L. Sauer, C. A. Klug and M. L. Buess, Efficient Excitation and Ringing Suppression in Nuclear Quadrupole Resonance, book chapter in NATO Science for Peace and Security Series B: Explosives Detection Using Magnetic and Nuclear Resonance Techniques (2009).
  12. Mingzhen Tian, Ijaz Zafarullah, Tiejun Chang, R. Krishna Mohan and Wm. Randall Babbitt,Demonstration of geometric operations on the Bloch vectors in an ensemble of rare-earth metal atoms, Physical Review A 79, 022312 (2009).

2008

  1. Indubala I. Satija, Daniel K. Dakin, Jay Vaishnav and Charles W. Clark, Physics of a Two-Dimensional Electron Gas with Cold atoms in Non-Abelian Gauge Potentials, Physical Review A 77, 043410 (2008).
  2. V. A. Ivanov and Y. Mishin, Dynamics of grain boundary motion coupled to shear deformation: An analytical model and its verification by molecular dynamics, Physical Review B 78, 064106 (2008).
  3. D. W. Prescott, J. B. Miller, C. Tourigny and K. L. Sauer, Nuclear quadrupole resonance single-pulse echoes, Journal of Magnetic Resonance 194, 1 (2008).

2007

  1. Ana Maria Rey, Keith Burnett, Indubala I. Satija and Charles W. Clark, Entanglement and Mott Transition in a Rotating Bosonic Ring lattice, Physical Review A 75, 063616 (2007).
  2. Indubala I. Satija, Daniel K. Dakin and Charles W. Clark, Metal-Insulator Transition Revisited for Cold atoms in Non-Abelian Gauge Potentials, Physical Review Letters 98, 269904 (2007).
  3. Y. Mishin, A. Suzuki, B. P. Uberuaga and A. F. Voter, Stick-slip behavior of grain boundaries studied by accelerated molecular dynamics, Physical Review B 75, 224101 (2007).
  4. D. W. Prescott, O. Olmedo, S. Soon and K. L. Sauer, Low-Field Approach to Double Resonance in NQR of Spin-1, Journal of Chemical Physics 126, 204504 (2007).
  5. Christoffer J. Renner, Randy R. Reibel, Mingzhen Tian, Tiejun Chang and W. Randall Babbitt,Broadband photonic arbitrary waveform generation based on spatial-spectral holographic materials, Journal of the Optical Society of America B 24, 2979 (2007).

 

 

Patents

Updated on 07/30/2012

 

2009

  1. M. V. Romalis, K. L. Sauer, I. Savukov, S. J. Seltzer and S-K Lee, Subfemtotesla radio-frequency atomic magnetometer for nuclear quadrupole resonance detection, U.S. Patent No. 7521928, dated April 21, 2009.

2007

  1. K. L. Sauer, C. A. Klug, A. Garroway and J. B. Miller, Cancellation of ringing in magnetic resonance utilizing a composite pulse, U.S. Patent No. H002177, dated Jan. 2, 2007.
  2. T. Chang, M. Tian, Wm. R. Babbitt and K. D. Merkel, Techniques for Using Chirped Field to Reconfigure a Medium That Stores Spectral Features, US. Patent No. 7307781. (issued Dec. 2007).

Members

Faculty

 

Yuri Mishin

Yuri Mishin

Professor
Planetary Hall 213, MSN 3F3, GMU (web page)

Ph.D: Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys, Russia, 1985
Expertise: material science

 

 

 

Predrag Nikolic

Predrag Nikolic

Assistant Professor
Planetary Hall 363A, MSN 3F3, GMU (web page)

Ph.D: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2004
Expertise: condensed matter theory

 

 

 

Phil Rubin

Professor
Planetary Hall 359, MSN 3F3, GMU (web page)

Ph.D: University of California, Los Angeles, 1989
Expertise: high energy physics experiment

 

 

 

Indu Satija

Professor
Planetary Hall 311, MSN 3F3, GMU (web page)

Ph.D: Columbia University, 1983
Expertise: condensed matter theory, non-linear dynamics

 

 

 

Karen Sauer

Karen L. Sauer

Associate Professor
Planetary Hall 217, MSN 3F3, GMU (web page)

Ph.D: Princeton University, 1998
Expertise: experimental atomic and molecular physics

 

 

 

Mingzhen Tian

Assistant Professor
Planetary Hall 363B, MSN 3F3, GMU (web page)

Ph.D: Paris-Sud University, France, 1997
Expertise: experimental atomic, molecular and optical physics

 

 

 

Krishnamurthy Vemuru

Term Assistant Professor
Planetary Hall 363B, MSN 3F3, GMU

Ph.D: Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India, 1995
Expertise: condensed matter experiment

 

 

 

Erhai Zhao

Assistant Professor
Planetary Hall 313, MSN 3F3, GMU (web page)

Ph.D: Northwestern University, 2005
Expertise: condensed matter theory

 

 

 

 

Research Staff and Affiliates

Updated on 07/30/2012

 

Satyan Bhongale

Satyan Bhongale

Postdoctoral Associate
Planetary Hall 2??, MSN 3F3, GMU (web page)

Ph.D: University of Colorado,Boulder, 2004
Expertise: theory of ultra-cold atomic gases

 

 

 

 

Graduate Students

Updated on 07/30/2012

  • Mahmoud Lababidi (condensed matter theory)
  • Steve Keeling (condensed matter theory)
  • Devin Vega (atomic physics experiment)
  • Michael Malone (atomic physics experiment)

About

 

The Center for Quantum Science at George Mason University gathers researhers from the School of Physics, Astronomy and Computational Sciences whose interests span condensed matter physics, atomic, molecular and optical physics, materials science and high energy physics. The main purpose of the Center is to stimulate the research productivity, interaction and collaboration among its members, create a collective mentoring environment for young researchers, and popularize its research areas to students and the public.

The director of the Center is Indubala Satija.

 

Research at the Center is funded by the National Science Foundation, Office of Navy Research, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Department of Energy, and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

 

Specific research areas include (but are not limited to):

  • condensed matter physics
    • superconductivity, quantum magnetism, topological insulators
    • quantum phase transitions and critical points
    • quantum field theory of interacting electrons
    • atomistic modeling and simulation of materials
  • atomic, molecular and optical physics
    • ultra-cold atoms, superfluidity, unitarity
    • optical lattices, quantum simulation, artificial gauge fields
    • magnetic resonance for materials characterization or for substance detection
    • quantum magnetometers
    • laser atomic spectroscopy, nonlinear and quantum optics
  • inter-disciplinary and applied physics
    • rare-earth based solid state quantum memory and quantum computation
    • quantum transport in spintronic and nano-electronic devices
    • non-linear dynamics

 

Research areas

Condensed matter theory: P.Nikolic, I.Satija, E.Zhao
Condensed matter experiment: K.Vemuru
Atomic, molecular and optical physics experiment: K.Sauer, M.Tian
Materials science: Y.Mishin
High energy physics experiment: P.Rubin

  • Condensed matter theory: P.Nikolic, I.Satija, E.Zhao
  • Condensed matter experiment: K.Vemuru
  • Atomic, molecular and optical physics experiment: K.Sauer, M.Tian
  • Materials science: Y.Mishin
  • High energy physics experiment: P.Rubin

Condensed matter physics

 

Condensed matter physics is a major fundamental branch of physics that studies the collective quantum dynamics of strongly interacting particles. Unlike high-energy physics, which focuses on elementary particles and forces as the fundamental building blocks of nature, condensed matter physics views the emergent phenomena arising from correlations and entanglement among many particles as the fundamental ones. Quantum field theory, on which both branches of physics rely, makes no distinction between these fundamental views. Examples of condensed matter researched at CQS are solid-state crystals, superfluids and superconductors, magnets, topological insulators, and ultra-cold gases of trapped atoms.

CQS theorists I.Satija, E.Zhao and P.Nikolic share a common interest in topological insulators. I.Satija has been working on integer quantum Hall states in lattice potentials, with U(1) and SU(2) gauge symmetry groups, often placed in the context of ultra-cold atoms. Her collaborative work, which included the world-leading experimentalist Ian Spielman of NIST, E.Zhao, P.Nikolic and international collaborators, has resulted with the first proposals to experimentally measure Chern numbers in cold atom band-insulators, and create fermionic time-reversal-invariant topological insulators using cold atoms. She also explores novel topological quantum states that are possible only out of equilibrium, and has a long-term interest in the non-linear dynamics of solitons. E.Zhao’s research has scrutinized the transport and proximity-effect properties of interfaces between topological insulators and metals or superconductors, motivated in part by the quest for Majorana fermions. P.Nikolic has been interested in exotic strongly-correlated states of electrons in topological insulators, whose elementary particle constituents carry a quantized fraction of electron’s charge and spin.

Superconductivity is another area studied at CQS from multiple angles. E.Zhao is interested in non-equilibrium properties of superconductors, motivated by possible applications in electronic and spintronic devices, as well as quantum computers. P.Nikolic has been investigating the fundamental properties of superconductors with strong quantum fluctuations, motivated by the unending quest to understand the physics of cuprate high-temperature superconductors. His theory of vortex quantum dynamics and charge dynamics in cuprates, developed in collaboration with world-leading theorists Subir Sachdev (Harvard) and Zlatko Tesanovic (Johns Hopkins), has successfully addressed some of the key experimental observations in cuprates. P.Nikolic is also working on “topological” superconductors in large magnetic fields or topological insulators, where zero-point quantum fluctuations can melt a vortex lattice and produce “fractional” topological insulators, highly-entangled many-body quantum states amenable to quantum computation.

Other interests of the CQS theorists include the transport properties of mesoscopic to nano-scale quantum devices (E.Zhao), and exotic quantum states of localized magnetic moments found in frustrated quantum magnets (P.Nikolic).

A popular blog introduction about topological insulators and some key concepts in condensed matter physics can be found here.

Atomic, molecular and optical physics

 

Atoms are the birthplace of quantum mechanics. The historic effort to understand atoms has grown over time into modern fields such as high-energy and condensed matter physics, which explore the constituents of atoms and complex systems made of many atoms respectively. Recently, however, the fundamental interest in atoms has been reinvigorated by the recent discoveries of experimental methods to manipulate the quantum behavior of many atoms, molecules and photons (particles of light). A new playground of quantum mechanics has been opened by this new ability to create idealized simulations of electronic solid-state materials or fundamental processes, and engineer novel quantum states of matter not possible in other systems.

Atomic physics research is done at CQS both theoretically and experimentally. All three CQS theorists,I.Satija, E.Zhao and P.Nikolic, are working on ultra-cold atomic or molecular gases. I.Satija has been interested in topological band-insulating states of cold atoms, as well as soliton dynamics and aspects of noise correlations in Bose-Einstein condensates. E.Zhao has been interested in exotic modulated superfluids, the orbital ordering patterns of atoms in higher bands of periodic potentials, dipolar Fermi gases, and topological phases of cold atoms. His recent collaboration with CQS postdocS.Bhongale has discovered that interacting fermions with dipole moments form solids with periodic modulations of bonds, rather than density. The research of P.Nikolic has mainly explored the unconventional many-body quantum states of fermionic cold atoms with nearly resonant scattering (unitarity). His work has characterized the universal dynamics of imbalanced fermion gases near unitarity, and extended its field-theoretical approach to fermionic atoms in lattice potentials and artificial gauge fields. This work lead to the theoretical discovery of novel pair-density wave supersolids, and the phase-diagram maps of vortex-FFLO and quantum vortex liquid states of atoms in artificially created gauge fields.

The CQS experimentalist K.Sauer is an expert on magnetic resonance phenomena. The research done in her Magnetic Resonance Laboratory (MRL) seeks to understand and exploit spin-dynamics in such systems as nuclear quadrupole resonance and optically pumped atoms. One of the goals of this research is to push the noise in such systems to their fundamental limit, to reveal the full capability of magnetic resonance at low-fields both as an analytic tool and for the detection of contraband substances.

The CQS experimentalist Mingzhen Tian is an expert on laser atomic spectroscopy, nonlinear and quantum optics, and quantum information. Her research is currently focused on rare-earth based solid state quantum memory and quantum computation, which are the important elements in developing quantum information science and technology. The research topics also include laser spectroscopic properties of rare-earth ions trapped in inorganic crystal lattice at cryogenic temperature, the coherent and incoherent processes under the excitation of composite laser pulses, and the influence of the static electric and magnetic fields. Study of these processes provides the information needed to set up the physical systems to demonstrate quantum memory and quantum computation and analyze and optimize the performance.

Materials science

 

Materials science is an interdisciplinary field dealing with fundamental properties and characteristics of materials, and applying the properties of matter to various areas of science and engineering. This scientific field investigates the relationship between the structure of materials at atomic or molecular scales and their macroscopic properties. It incorporates elements of applied physics and chemistry. [Paraphrasing Wikipedia]

The CQS material scientist Y.Mishin is interested in the theory and atomistic modeling of materials, particularly materials interfaces, atomic diffusion, and mechanical behavior of metals and intermetallic compounds. Specific areas of interest include models of atomic interaction in materials, interfaces in materials (including grain and interphase boundaries, interfacial motion, segregation, chemical reactions and cohesion), atomistic theory and modeling of interfacial kinetics in materials, defects and diffusion in intermetallic compounds, and plastic deformation and fracture of metals and intermetallic compounds.

High energy physics

 

This fundamental branch of physics seeks to understand the fundamental building blocks and forces of our world. The information about elementary particles is revealed only at extremely high energies that are naturally obtained in the interiors of stars, accretion discs of black holes and early universe. People can nowadays accelerate particles to such extreme energies using some of the largest and most sophisticated machines ever built.

Phil Rubin conducts high-energy experiments at CERN. His current research involves experiments at accelerator facilities designed to explore the fundamental components and interactions of nature. The experiments seek evidence for rare and forbidden sub-atomic processes which might be exceptions to accepted symmetries or conservation laws.