| EPSRC Reference: |
GR/T08951/01 |
| Title: |
Studying Magnetic Phase Transitions with Ultracold Atoms in Optical Lattices |
| Principal Investigator: |
Renzoni, Professor F |
| Other Investigators: |
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| Department: |
Physics and Astronomy |
| Organisation: |
UCL |
| Scheme: |
Standard Research (Pre-FEC) |
| Starts: |
01 January 2005 |
Ends: |
31 December 2007 |
Value (£): |
57,582
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| EPSRC Research Topic Classifications: |
| Light-Matter Interactions |
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| No relevance to Underpinning Sectors |
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Summary on Grant Application Form |
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Magnetic interactions in solids are known to lead to spectacular consequences, as ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism. Many magnetic phenomena are described by using spin Hamiltonians. Among the various spin models, particularly important is the Heisenberg Hamiltonian, which successfully describes both ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism for a whole variety of insulating magnetic materials. Despite its apparent simplicity, the Heisenberg model describes a very complex behavior, including various quantum phase transitions for different dimensionalities and geometries of the lattice, and anisotropies of the couplings.Although the Heisenberg Hamiltonian successfully describes many properties of solid state samples, the lack of tunability typical of solid materials does not allow to explore the full variety of phase transitions associated with this spin Hamiltonian. In fact in solid materials the strength of the spin exchange interaction can be tuned only in a quite limited range.Ultracold atoms in far-detuned optical lattices constitute an ideal system to implement Heisenberg Hamiltonians and to study the associated phase transitions. This is a highly tunable system: the interaction parameters can be arbitrarily changed by varying the depth of the optical potential. This can be precisely achieved by varying the intensity of the laser beams creating the optical lattice. Also the dimensionality of the system can be varied, by simply raising the potential in the unwanted dimension(s). In this way, one- and two-dimensional systems can be obtained. It appears therefore that atomic physics can play a unique role in our understanding of many body physics: as a completely novel tool to investigate strong correlations in extremely well defined and tunable quantum systems.The aim of the proposed research is to study experimentally the magnetic phase transitions associated to the Heisenberg Hamiltonian by using ultracold rubidium atoms in a far-detuned optical lattice.
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Key Findings |
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Potential use in non-academic contexts |
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Impacts |
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| Description |
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk |
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Sectors submitted by the Researcher |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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