Southwest Quantum Information and Technology

Twelfth Annual Meeting, February 18-21, 2010
Santa Fe, New Mexico

Full Program | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday

SESSION 11: Quantum Information and Condensed Matter
Session Chair:
8:30-9:15	Matthew Hastings, Microsoft Station Q
	Proving Hall Conductance Quantization
	Abstract. Ever since Laughlin's original gauge argument for Hall conductance quantization, mathematicians and physicists have tried to find a general proof. Unfortunately, current approaches either require extra assumptions or are limited to noninteracting electrons. Using quasi-adiabatic continuation, we are able to remove these limitations. I will try to explain how quasi-adiabatic continuation can be used as a general "toolkit": once the machinery is developed, many results follow directly, including this, the higher dimensional Lieb-Schultz-Mattis theorem, Goldstone's theorem, and more. This is joint work with S. Michalakis.
9:15-9:45	Benjamin Lev, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
	Trapping ultracold dysprosium
	Abstract. Ultracold dysprosium gases, with a magnetic moment ten times that of alkali atoms and equal only to terbium as the most magnetic atom, are expected to exhibit a multitude of fascinating collisional dynamics and quantum dipolar phases, including quantum liquid crystal physics. We report the first laser cooling and trapping of half a billion Dy atoms using a repumper-free magneto-optical trap (MOT) and continuously loaded magnetic confinement, and we characterize the trap recycling dynamics for bosonic and fermionic isotopes. The first inelastic collision measurements in the few partial wave, 100 uK to 1 mK, regime are made in a system possessing a submerged open electronic f-shell. In addition, we observe unusual stripes of intra-MOT <10 uK sub-Doppler cooled atoms.