Physical Society Colloquium

Magnetism in quantum gases

Dan Stamper-Kurn

Department of Physics
UC Berkeley

With quantum gases, one can explore magnetic ordering and dynamics in regimes inaccessible in solid-state systems. For example, in degenerate spinor Bose gases, magnetization of the atomic spin is established parasitically along with Bose-Einstein condensation, allowing minute spin-dependent energies to dictate the magnetic ordering of the gas.

In addition, the extreme isolation of the atomic system allows for systems to created far out of equilibrium, allowing the dynamics of symmetry breaking and of various spin textures to probed in real time. A second cold-atom “material,” in which atoms are confined within the periodic potential of an optical lattice, bears a stronger resemblance to condensed-matter systems. I will present recent progress to explore the effects of geometric frustration with cold atoms that are confined in a two-dimensional kagome optical lattice.