Heidelberg 2015 – scientific programme

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SYPS: Promovierendensymposium: Controlled Diatomic Molecules in the Ultracold Regime

SYPS 1: Controlled Diatomic Molecules in the Ultracold Regime

SYPS 1.2: Invited Talk

Tuesday, March 24, 2015, 17:30–18:00, K/HS1

New frontiers in quantum simulation with ultra-cold polar molecules — •Ana Maria Rey — JILA, NIST and Physics Department, University of Colorado-Boulder

Understanding the behavior of interacting electrons in solids or liquids is at the heart of modern quantum science and necessary for technological advances. However, the complexity of their interactions generally prevents us from coming up with an exact mathematical description of their behavior. Precisely engineered ultracold polar molecular gases have been proposed as a powerful tool for unraveling these challenging physical problems. In contrast to atoms, polar molecules have a rich internal structure and interact via strong long-range and anisotropic dipolar interactions. Although those properties are very appealing, their applicability in actual experiments has been difficult due to competing chemical reactions which substantially limit the lifetime of the molecules. In this talk, I will discuss developments at JILA on using arrays of KRb molecules for the investigation of ultra-cold chemistry, complex many-body phenomena and magnetism. I will discuss how trapping the molecules in crystals of light has allowed us to prevent chemical reactions and how joint experiment-theory work has allowed us to realize and characterize far-from-equilibrium interacting spin models. Finally I will discuss new directions towards the observation of quantum transport, spin-orbital physics and topological phases with polar molecular gases.