Adventures in the ultracold world

Joshua Jortner

School of Chemistry,Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel


Chemical physics of large finite systems addresses size effects on the structure, energy landscapes, phase changes, electron-nuclear energetics, response, dynamics, control and function of clusters, nanostructures, finite quantum systems and irradiated ultracold gases. We shall focus on recent explorations of the phase changes, energetics, elementary excitations and dynamics of large, finite, ultracold systems in the temperature domain T < 2.7K (with the upper limit arbitrarily corresponding to the current temperature of the expanding universe). The ultracold world of atomic and molecular systems manifests one broad limiting case of extreme thermodynamic, energetic and temporal conditions. These encompass ultraslow and ultralow phenomena in ultracold systems (quantum clusters and optical molasses), ultraslow charges (effective charges of 10-5e, characterizing optical molasses), and ultraslow time scales (for excess electron tunneling from bubbles in liquid 4He clusters) for the interrogation of superfluidity in finite boson systems.

References
1. J. Jortner and M. Rosenblit, Advances in Chemical Physics, 132, 247-343 (2006).
2. M. Rosenblit and J. Jortner, J. Chem. Phys., 124, 194505-1-8 (2006); J. Chem. Phys. 124, 194506-1-11 (2006).

Back