The US National Science Foundation announced yesterday that it is funding three new research institutes for quantum technologies. In a center for quantum science and technologies led by the University of Colorado and funded with a total of 25 million dollars, Peter Zoller's research group is the only international partner involved.
Matthew Norcia has been awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the Erwin Schrödinger Center for Quantum Science and Technology (ESQ). As an ESQ postdoc, Matt will study dipolar quantum mixtures of erbium and dysprosium atoms in the RARE lab of Francesca Ferlaino.
In June Hannes Pichler joined the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) in Innsbruck as Junior Research Director and is also Professor at the Department of Theoretical Physics of the University of Innsbruck. Last Friday, the theoretical physicist was officially welcomed at IQOQI.
Scientists around the world are working to demonstrate the quantum nature of macroscopic objects in the laboratory and to exploit it. Physicists led by Gerhard Kirchmair have now succeeded in coupling a micromechanical oscillator magnetically strongly to a superconducting circuit. In the future, the limits of the quantum world could thus be explored and new quantum sensors built.
In the laboratory, physicists observe clouds of ultracold atoms in order to virtually dive into the interior of a neutron star or to return to the beginning of the universe. Certain quantum gases exhibit similar physical properties. A team led by Rudolf Grimm has now realized the first collisionally stable and strongly interacting mixed Fermi gas of two elements with different masses. They will use it to observe new superfluid states.