Category: Atoms and Molecules

Why I’m Skeptical About the Changing Fine-Structure Constant

Not long ago, a new preprint on the fine structure constant got a bunch of press, nicely summed up by the Knight Science Journalism Tracker last week. I meant to say something about this last week, but what with it being the first week of classes and all, I didn’t find the time. I still… Continue reading Why I’m Skeptical About the Changing Fine-Structure Constant

Counterfactual Physics: Lorentz Variance?

The theory of relativity takes its name from a very simple and appealing idea: that the laws of physics should look the same to moving observers as to stationary ones. “Laws of physics” here includes Maxwell’s equations for electricity and magnetism, which necessarily means that moving observers must see the same speed of light as… Continue reading Counterfactual Physics: Lorentz Variance?

The ABC’s of AMO Physics

Over at Confused at a Higher Level, Melissa offers an alphabetical list of essential supplies for a condensed matter experimentalist at a small college. This is a fun idea for back-to-school time, so I’ll steal it, and offer the following alphabetical list of essentials for Atomic, Molecular, and Optical physics at a small college, kind… Continue reading The ABC’s of AMO Physics

Indirect Excitation Control: Ultrafast Quantum Gates for Single Atomic Qubits

Last week, John Baez posted a report on a seminar by Dzimitry Matsukevich on ion trap quantum information issues. In the middle of this, he writes: Once our molecular ions are cold, how can we get them into specific desired states? Use a mode locked pulsed laser to drive stimulated Raman transitions. Huh? As far… Continue reading Indirect Excitation Control: Ultrafast Quantum Gates for Single Atomic Qubits

Melting Simulated Insulators

The Joerg Heber post that provided one of the two papers for yesterday’s Hanbury Brown Twiss-travaganza also included a write-up of a new paper in Nature on Mott insulators, which was also written up in Physics World. Most of the experimental details are quite similar to a paper by Markus Greiner’s group I wrote up… Continue reading Melting Simulated Insulators

Bunches and Antibunches of Atoms: Hanbury Brown and Twiss Effects in Ultracold Atoms

Two papers in one post this time out. One of these was brought to my attention by Joerg Heber, the other I was reminded of when checking some information for last week’s mathematical post on photons. They fit extremely well together though, and both relate to the photon correlation stuff I was talking about last… Continue reading Bunches and Antibunches of Atoms: Hanbury Brown and Twiss Effects in Ultracold Atoms

High Excitement in Review: “Quantum information with Rydberg atoms”

I’m a big fan of review articles. For those not in academic science, “review article” means a long (tens of pages) paper collecting together the important results of some field of science, and presenting an overview of the whole thing. These vary somewhat in just how specific they are– some deal with both experiment and… Continue reading High Excitement in Review: “Quantum information with Rydberg atoms”

The Science Mindset List

It’s nearly time for classes to resume, which means it’s time for a zillion stories about Beloit College’s annual Kids These Days List, listing off a bunch of things that this year’s entering college class, who were mostly born in 1992, have always taken for granted. A sample: 1. Few in the class know how… Continue reading The Science Mindset List

Waves: Moving Without Going Anywhere

At the tail end of Tuesday’s post about wind and temperature, I asked a “vaguely related fun bonus question:” If the air molecules that surround us are moving at 500 m/s anyway, why isn’t the speed of sound more like 500 m/s than 300 m/s? This is another one that people are sometimes surprised by.… Continue reading Waves: Moving Without Going Anywhere