Date/Time
Date(s) - 28/11/2007
3:15 pm - 4:15 pm

Title: Nonequilibrium dynamics in low-dimensional cold atom condensates

Speaker: Dr. Anton Burkov

Institute: University of Waterloo

Location: ABB 102

Description:

Nonequilibrium dynamics in strongly correlated quantum systems is an extremely interesting yet very difficult problem, both theoretically and experimentally. In traditional, “electronic” condensed matter systems, nonequilibrium phenomena are hard to observe, primarily due to the strong coupling of the electrons to dissipative environment, which leads to very short relaxation times.
In contrast, cold atom systems are nearly isolated from the environment. This makes it possible to study far from equilibrium dynamics in such systems on long time scales, easily observable in experiment. I will present our recent work on the dynamics of decoherence of a cold atom interferometer, consisting of a pair of
low-dimensional condensates. Low dimensionality results in interesting consequences for the dynamics, in particular in the emergence of universal classical dynamics at long times. I will discuss recent experiments, confirming our results, and the implications of our theory for the general understanding of
nonequilibrium dynamics in quantum mechanical systems.