Dr. Wolfgang Ketterle
John D. MacArthur Professor of Physics Director
MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms
2001 Nobel Laureate
New Forms of Quantum Matter Near Absolute Zero temperature
Why do physicists freeze matter to extremely low temperatures? Why is it worthwhile to cool to temperatures which are more than a million times lower than that of interstellar space? This lecture will discuss new forms of matter, which only exist at extremely low temperatures. Low temperatures open a new door to the quantum world where particles behave as waves and "march in lockstep". In 1925, Einstein predicted such a new form of matter, the Bose-Einstein condensate, but it was realized only in 1995 in laboratories at Boulder and at MIT. More recently, Bose-Einstein condensates of molecules and fermion pairs have been created and may show behavior similar to electrons in superconducting materials. A new form of high-temperature superfluidity has been discovered. In the future, we hope to use ultracold gases to create designer matter, i.e. to realize new forms of matter in the laboratory which have been discussed as model systems for many-body phenomena, but have not been observed in nature.
The talk is Thursday April 3 at 7:00 pm in Giffels Auditorium (Old Main-201). Parking is free (after 5 pm) in the Stadium Parking Deck.