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Physics 23800 Atomic Physics

Day/Time: TuTh 9:30 - 10:50 am

Location: KPTC 103                   

Lecturer: Cheng Chin, cchin@uchicago.edu

Office: GCIS  107

Office Hours: TuTh   11 am - 12:30 pm                              

Class outline:

Q1: Precision Measurements (Class note 1, note 2, P&A paper)

 Wk 1  10/02  Tu         How precise can a measurement be?

 Wk 1  10/04  Th         Lecture 1: Atom-photon interactions (Foot: 7.1, 7.2)

 Wk 2  10/09  Tu         Lecture 2: Ramsey spectroscopy (1989 Prize) (Foot: 7.3, 7.4) HW1

 Wk 2  10/11  Th         Lecture 3: Atom interferometry

 Wk 3  10/16  Tu         P&A (Principle and applications): Atomic clock

Q2: How do you control atoms remotely? (note 3)

 Wk 3  10/18  Th         Lecture 4 : Radiation force (2018 Prize) (Foot: 7.5, 7.6)

 Wk 4  10/23  Tu         Lecture 5: Dipole force (Foot: 7.7,7.8, 9.5, 9.6) HW1 due HW2

 Wk 4  10/25  Th         Lecture 6: Full QED treatment (1997 Prize) (Cohen-Tanouji)

 Wk 5  10/30  Tu         P&A (Principle and applications): Optical Tweezer

Q3: How do we reach T = 1 nano-Kelvin? (note 4)

 Wk 5  11/01  Th         Lecture 6: Doppler cooling (Foot: 9.1, 9.2, 9.3) HW2due HW3 HW2Sol#3            

 Wk 6  11/06  Tu         Mid-Term Solution

 Wk 6  11/08  Th         Lecture 7: Magneto-optical trap (1997 Prize)   (Foot: 9.4,9.7)    

 Wk 7  11/13  Tu        Lecture 8: Bose-Einstein condensation (2001 Prize) (Foot: 10.3, 10.4)  HW3 due HW4  

 Wk 7  11/15  Th        Recent research on optical cooling and trapping (Ignacio, Lin and Carl)

Q4: Quantum simulation and quantum computation

 Wk 8  11/20  Tu        Discussion: Realization of a quantum bit (Jon Siimon) 

 Wk 9  11/27  Tu        Lecture 9: Quantum logic gates HW4due HW5

 Wk 9  11/29  Th        Lecture 10: Quantum simulation

 Wk10 12/04  Tu        Experiments on quantum simulation and quantum information (Jeronimo, Connor, Marie):  HW5due on 12/6/2018

 

Textbook (Recommended) Atomic Physics by Christopher J. Foot, Oxford, 2005

 

 

Evaluation    Problem sets: 1/3   Midterms: 1/3  Discussions+Presentations: 1/3

 

Homeworks and midterms   Each homework contains 2~3 questions; late policy: -10% per day.  Midterms contain 2~3 questions (1 hour, open book, no discussion).