This paper reviews recent experimental and theoretical progress concerning many-body phenomena in dilute, ultracold gases. It focuses on effects beyond standard weak-coupling descriptions, such as the Mott-Hubbard transition in optical lattices, strongly interacting gases in one and two dimensions, or lowest-Landau-level physics in quasi-two-dimensional gases in fast rotation. Strong correlations in fermionic gases are discussed in optical lattices or near-Feshbach resonances in the BCS-BEC crossover.

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Many-Body Physics with Ultracold Gases

The phenomenon of Bose-Einstein condensation of dilute gases in traps is reviewed from a theoretical perspective. Mean-field theory provides a framework to understand the main features of the condensation and the role of interactions between particles. Various properties of these systems are discussed, including the density profiles and the energy of the ground-state configurations, the collective oscillations and the dynamics of the expansion, the condensate fraction and the thermodynamic functions. The thermodynamic limit exhibits a scaling behavior in the relevant length and energy scales. Despite the dilute nature of the gases, interactions profoundly modify the static as well as the dynamic properties of the system; the predictions of mean-field theory are in excellent agreement with available experimental results. Effects of superfluidity including the existence of quantized vortices and the reduction of the moment of inertia are discussed, as well as the consequences of coherence such as the Josephson effect and interference phenomena. The review also assesses the accuracy and limitations of the mean-field approach.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/cond-mat/9806038.pdf

Theory of Bose-Einstein condensation in trapped gases

1. Introduction 2. Theoretical foundations 3. Propagation and focusing of optical fields 4. Spatial resolution and position accuracy 5. Nanoscale optical microscopy 6. Near-field optical probes 7. Probe-sample distance control 8. Light emission and optical interaction in nanoscale environments 9. Quantum emitters 10. Dipole emission near planar interfaces 11. Photonic crystals and resonators 12. Surface plasmons 13. Forces in confined fields 14. Fluctuation-induced phenomena 15. Theoretical methods in nano-optics Appendices Index.

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Principles of nano-optics

Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) has been observed in a dilute gas of sodium atoms. A Bose-Einstein condensate consists of a macroscopic population of the ground state of the system, and is a coherent state of matter. In an ideal gas, this phase transition is purely quantum-statistical. The study of BEC in weakly interacting systems which can be controlled and observed with precision holds the promise of revealing new macroscopic quantum phenomena that can be understood from first principles.

Bose-Einstein condensation in a gas of sodium atoms

Feshbach resonances are the essential tool to control the interaction between atoms in ultracold quantum gases. They have found numerous experimental applications, opening up the way to important breakthroughs. This review broadly covers the phenomenon of Feshbach resonances in ultracold gases and their main applications. This includes the theoretical background and models for the description of Feshbach resonances, the experimental methods to find and characterize the resonances, a discussion of the main properties of resonances in various atomic species and mixed atomic species systems, and an overview of key experiments with atomic Bose-Einstein condensates, degenerate Fermi gases, and ultracold molecules.

Feshbach resonances in ultracold gases

Multielectron stabilization of atoms in a laser field: Classical perspective.

We have developed a one-dimensional time-dependent Thomas-Fermi model of atoms, molecules, and small clusters exposed to an intense subpicosecond laser field. In this model, the dynamics of an electronic cloud is governed by the hydrodynamic equations of motion, whereas the nuclei move in accordance with the Newton equations. The quantum mechanics enters in this approach only through the constitutive relation between the pressure and the density, which is derived from the application of Fermi-Dirac statistics to a noninteracting $T=0$ temperature electron gas. The time-independent version of the model, formulated in terms of the integral equation for the electric potential, is also discussed. We present numerical results for diatomic molecules and small clusters irradiated by the strong laser pulses. In the case of molecules, we observe the multielectron ionization accompanied by dissociation. The kinetic energy defect, understood as a reduction of the energy of resulting ions in comparison with a simple Coulomb explosion picture, is explained in terms of a screening effect of escaping fragments by the ejected electrons. For small clusters we find that the explosion of the cluster has a stepwise character; the consecutive layers of atoms are stripped off one by one. We observe the highly energetic (as compared with diatomic systems) atomic fragments even for relatively low laser intensities and a few atoms clusters. Also, the model predicts the nonuniform energy distribution among the same charge state ions and supports the idea of hot electrons generated in the cluster via a mechanism of inverse bremsstrahlung.

One-dimensional Thomas-Fermi model of atoms, molecules, and small clusters exposed to an intense laser field

We investigate the possibilities for the generation of solitons and vortices in a degenerate gas of neutral fermionic atoms. In analogy with the already experimentally demonstrated technique applied to a gaseous Bose-Einstein condensate we propose the phase engineering of a Fermi gas as a practical route to excited states with solitons and vortices. We stress that solitons and vortices appear even in a non-interacting fermionic gas. For solitons, in a system with a sufficiently large number of fermions and appropriate trap configuration, the Pauli blocking acts as the interaction between particles.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0953-4075/35/14/101/pdf

Solitons and vortices in ultracold fermionic gases

The quantum radiation field inside a double cavity is examined. The double cavity consists of a cavity containing a reflecting mirror. Two independent radiation fields are present inside the cavity. It is then assumed that the mirror becomes suddenly transparent. The double cavity transforms thus into a single cavity. The relationship between the radiation fields before and after the change is investigated. It is shown that the sudden change excites the radiation modes of the single cavity. Only modes having a node at the position of the mirror are not excited. The sudden change of the mirror's reflectivity can thus generate photons from the vacuum. It is also shown that the sudden change produces squeezing. These features of the double cavity are then employed in a gedankenexperiment for the generation of entanglement between noninteracting atoms with the quantum eraser technique.

Kazimierz Rzazewski

Papers

Multielectron stabilization of atoms in a laser field: Classical perspective.

One-dimensional Thomas-Fermi model of atoms, molecules, and small clusters exposed to an intense laser field

Solitons and vortices in ultracold fermionic gases

Electromagnetic radiation in a cavity with a time-dependent mirror

Gauge-independent canonical formalism for nonrelativistic electrodynamics