Hamburg 2009 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 56: Poster IV

Q 56.19: Poster

Donnerstag, 5. März 2009, 16:30–19:00, VMP 9 Poster

Degenerate Bose-Fermi Gases in Microgravity — •Waldemar Herr for the Quantus Team — Institut für Quantenoptik, Leibniz Universität Hannover

Bose Einstein Condensates (BEC) opened the way for realization of atomic ensembles with Heisenberg limited uncertainty. In microgravity extremely dilute samples of BEC can be obtained and observed after a free evolution on timescales of seconds. Applications range from atom optics to matter wave interferometry. This has led us to realize a BEC of 10000 87Rb atoms in microgravity. The experimental results (to be published) establish the fact, that in a microgravity environment ultra-large condensates (~1.5 mm) after a free evolution of 1 second can be observed. In particular, microgravity provides mass independent confining potential which is very important for the research on a mixture of quantum gases. We aim to realize a new setup for multi-species experiments, which can be used in catapult mode doubling the time for microgravity to 9 seconds. The experiment is planned to use 87Rb and 40K as degenerate Bose and Fermi gases respectively and can be used to carry out experiments on interferometry, Bose-Fermi mixtures and tests of the weak equivalence principle in quantum domain. Up to date progress and future prospects of this ambitious and technically challenging project will be presented. The Quantus project is a collaboration of MPQ Munich, U Bremen, U Ulm, U Hamburg, HU Berlin, and LU Hanover supported by the German Space Agency DLR with funds provided by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) under grant number DLR 50 WM 0346.