Taming, slowing and trapping atoms with light
Cold is quantum, Quantum is cool!
We shape quantum matter
Multicolored lasers for a variety of atoms
Keeping our eyes on the quantum world
Join our ultracool group!
High technology for great science

Welcome to the website of the Ultracold Quantum Gases group at the European Laboratory for Nonlinear Spectroscopy (LENS), the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Florence (Italy) and the Institute of Optics of the Italian National Research Council (CNR - INO). In our labs we use lasers and magnetic fields to produce the lowest temperatures of the Universe, just a few billionths of a degree above absolute zero...

At these temperatures, atoms stop moving and we can control them for a variety of different fundamental studies and applications. We can force atoms to arrange according to a periodic structure and simulate the behavior of crystalline solids and new materials. We can use the atoms as ultra-high accurate sensors to probe forces with the power of quantum mechanics. We can study how quantum particles combine together under the action of strong interactions and how superfluidity develops. We can use these ultracold atoms to process information and develop new quantum technologies.

Dress warmly and... follow us for this ultracold journey!

LAST NEWS

Understanding Josephson tunneling in strongly interacting Fermi superfluids in the simplest way!

Together with Wilhelm Zwerger, we developed a simple analytic model to quantitatively describe the Josephson tunneling between two Fermi superfluids along the entire BCS-BEC crossover. Our work just got published in Phys. Rev. A.

M. Zaccanti, W. Zwerger,
Critical Josephson current in BCS-BEC–crossover superfluids
Phys. Rev. A 100, 063601 (2019)

Quantum Zeno-assisted Noise Sensing

The ideal quantum Zeno effect is a robust method to protect the coherent dynamics of a quantum system. In particular , in the weak quantum Zeno regime, repeated quantum projective measurements can allow the sensing of semi classical field fluctuations. We report our proposal and demonstration, both theoretical and experimental, of a novel noise sensing scheme enabled by the weak quantum Zeno regime. We experimentally tested these theoretical results on a Bose Einstein Condensate of 87Rb atoms realized on an atom chip, by sensing ad hoc introduced noisy fields.

H.–V. Do et al.,
Experimental proof of quantum Zeno-assisted noise sensing
New J. Phys. 21, 113056 (2019)

A high power optical trap with no thermal lensing realized!

We devised a simple, totally passive scheme that enables to realize an inexpensive optical trapping apparatus free from thermal lensing effects. Our work just got published in Optics Express.

C. Simonelli et al.,
Realization of a high power optical trapping setup free from thermal lensing effects
Opt. Express 27, 27215 (2019)

Observation of two broken symmetries in a supersolid

The paradoxical supersolid phase of matter has the apparently incompatible properties of crystalline order and superfluidity. A crucial feature of a one-dimensional supersolid is the occurrence of two gapless excitations reflecting the Goldstone modes associated with the spontaneous breaking of two continuous symmetries: the breaking of phase invariance, corresponding to the locking of the phase of the atomic wave functions at the origin of superfluid phenomena, and the breaking of translational invariance due to the lattice structure of the system. We demonstrate the supersolid nature of the coherent stripe regime we discovered in dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates. In our trapped system, the symmetry breaking appears as two distinct compressional oscillation modes, reflecting the gapless Goldstone excitations of the homogeneous system. We observe that the two modes have different natures, with the higher frequency mode associated with an oscillation of the periodicity of the emergent lattice and the lower one characterizing the superfluid oscillations. Our work paves the way to explore the two quantum phase transitions between the superfluid, supersolid and crystal-like configurations that can be accessed by tuning a single interaction parameter.

L. Tanzi, et al.
Supersolid symmetry breaking from compressional oscillations in a dipolar quantum gas
Nature 574, 382 (2019)

See also the Nature News and Views by S. M. Mossman:

S. M. Mossman, Sounds of a supersolid detected in dipolar atomic gases for the first time
Nature 574, 341 (2019)

and the Nature Physics research highligh by Y. Li:

Y. Li, The buried trace
Nature Physics 15, 986 (2019)

Measuring geometric phases with quantum Zeno

A closed-trajectory evolution of a quantum state generally imprints a phase that contains both dynamical and geometrical contributions. While dynamical phases depend on the reference system, geometric phase factors are uniquely defined by the properties of the outlined trajectory. Here, we generate and measure geometric phases in a Bose-Einstein condensate of 87Rb using a combination of dynamical quantum Zeno effect and measurement-free evolution. We show that the dynamical quantum Zeno effect can inhibit the formation of a geometric phase without altering the dynamical phase. This can be used to extract the geometric Aharonov-Anandan phase from any closed-trajectory evolution without requiring knowledge or control of the Hamiltonian.

H.–V. Do et al.,
Measuring geometric phases with a dynamical quantum Zeno effect in a Bose-Einstein condensate
Phys. Rev. Research 1, 033028 (2019)

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