BEC 4: Rubidium in Optical Lattices
Welcome to the wiki of BEC 4! Our research focuses on exploring the world of ultracold atoms, where many new and interesting phenomena occur.
BEC 4 is only one part of the larger group of Professors Wolfgang Ketterle and Dave Pritchard. For an overview of the Ketterle-Pritchard group and all the exciting things happening, see here.
We are also a part of the Center for Ultracold Atoms, which is a National Science Foundation Physics Frontier Center. Check out all the awesome science happening around the CUA!
This site is being continuously updated. Check back soon for more information!
Latest News
December 24, 2014: "Weyl Points in three-dimensional optical lattices: synthetic magnetic monopoles in momentum space" is out on the arXiv! Congratulations to our colleagues Tena and Hrvoje at the University of Zagreb and Marin and Ling here at MIT.
December 11, 2014: "Scheme for generalized maximally localized Wannier functions in one dimension" is out on the arXiv, congratulations to our undergraduate student Yuri for carrying his lab project through to a nice conclusion!
November 25, 2013: "Spin-Orbit Coupling and Quantum Spin Hall Effect for Neutral Atoms without Spin Flips" is out today in Physical Review Letters.
October 28, 2013: Our research on the Harper Hamiltonian is featured in Physics World today!
October 28, 2013: "Realizing the Harper Hamiltonian with Laser-Assisted Tunneling in Optical Lattices" is out today in Physical Review Letters. See also the accompanying Physics Viewpoint for a nice overview of the research.
August 30,2013: Our theory paper on realizing spin-orbit coupling and the spin Hall effect is out on the arxiv, here it is.
August 8, 2013: Our paper on realizing high synthetic magnetic fields is up on the arxiv, check it out!
Older News
May 15, 2013: Congratulations to Dr. Hiro Miyake for successfully defending his thesis! Check back soon for "Probing and Preparing Novel States of Quantum Degenerate Rubidium Atoms in Optical Lattices" to appear in the thesis section on the publications page, it is a fantastic read!
March 30, 2013: We are looking for new graduate students to join our rubidium lab (BEC 4) and bosonic lithium lab (BEC 5). If you are interested and are visiting for the Open House, please feel free to contact any one of us by email (contact info in the People section), or stop by and talk to us and we can give you lab tours. Our office is in room 26-269.
October 21, 2011: Our paper on Bragg scattering from rubidium atoms in a 3D cubic optical lattice is published in Physical Review Letters. Take a look at it here.
January 6, 2011: Our paper on the theory of adiabatic demagnetization cooling gets published in Physical Review A. Take a look at it here.
Funding
We acknowledge funding from the DARPA OLE program, AFOSR MURI, ARO MURI, NSF, and the Department of Defense.
Atoms undergoing Bloch oscillations in an accelerated lattice.