The Department of Physics and Astronomy invites all to a colloquium featuring Dr. Robert Thompson, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. Dr. Thompson will present his talk, “Cold Atom Laboratory: An Introduction to NASA’s coolest mission ever”, Tuesday, September 6, at 4:10 p.m. in Webster 17.
Meet for refreshments before the lecture at 3:45 – 4:10 p.m. in the foyer on floor G above the lecture hall.
Abstract: Microgravity offers a wealth of advantages for studies of ultra-cold atomic gases and their applications. Space borne instruments offer the possibility of dramatically reducing the forces needed to confine an ultra-cold sample of atoms, enabling a a new regime of ultra-low temperatures via expansion into exceptionally weak trapping potentials. Ultra-cold samples produced in this environment can be observed floating unconfined for long periods, nearly fixed relative to the apparatus, offering the possibility of a new generation of space based quantum sensors with unprecedented sensitivity. In addition, microgravity removes density stratification of samples and separation of mixtures of different atomic species.
The Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL) will be a flexible, multi-user ultra-cold atom facility that will enable the precise study of quantum gases in the microgravity environment of the International Space Station. CAL will launch in 2017, allowing scientists to access a novel regime with effective temperatures just a few trillionths of a degree above absolute zero.
In this talk I will give an overview of the CAL instrument and discuss some of the trials and tribulations of bringing tabletop atomic physics into space.
