Atomic & Molecular Physics

We are pleased to report that our article, "Prospects for Bose-Einstein Condensation in Ultracold Molecules", Laser Physics 13, 1091 (2003), remains in a 30,996-way tie for the least-cited physics paper of all time!

Balls of clay may stick to each other when they collide. This is because the original energy they had before the collision gets so mixed up in heating the clay that the balls have none left to separate. Molecules, particularly small ones, don't generally act this way, since there are not many places for the energy to disappear into.

It is widely known that mixtures of Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC's) can "phase separate" under circumstances where the mutual repulsion of the two BEC's overcomes their self-repulsion. Typically, one BEC goes to one side of the enclosure, and the other goes to the other side. Now, along with Chris Ticknor and Eddy Timmermans, Ryan Wilson has expanded this notion to include dipolar BEC's that possess a roton instability.

This year's winner of the Group for Precision Measurement and Fundamental Constants (GPMFC) Student Poster Prize is JILA student William Milner.  Milner's poster prize was won at DAMOP, which is a part of the American Physics Society (APS) and stands for Division of Atomic, Molecular & Optical Physics.  The title of his poster was "Exploring interactions in the band insulating regime with Fermi-degenerate ⁸⁷ Sr".  Congratulations Will!

Kevin Dorney, a former STROBE graduate student at CU Boulder in the Kapteyn and Murnane research group, has been awarded the Madame Curie Scholarship, which finances a two-year Postdoc Program at the IMEC AttoLab starting in May 2021.

The NSF GRFP recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported STEM disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited US institutions. The five-year fellowship includes three years of financial support including an annual stipend of $34,000 and a cost of education allowance of $12,000 to the institution.