Spring 2005 Physics Colloquium
April 1; Friday, PAS 220, 3pm
Ronald Walsworth
Harvard University
Multidisciplinary applications of state-selected atoms
State-selected atoms provide powerful tools to attack a wide range of
problems. Examples I will discuss include: atomic population
inversion, which enables masers that can be used as high-stability
clocks and for precision tests of Lorentz and CPT symmetry; spin
polarization of noble gases, which enables high-sensitivity gas-phase
NMR, with applications in biomedical imaging and materials science;
(and if time permits) coherent superposition of atomic states, which
can be crafted to enable "slow" and "stored" light, with potential
applications in quantum information processing and elsewhere.