Eric Cornell

Thirty years of Bose-Einstein Condensates

Steven Burrows — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 19:45:35 +0000

Thirty years of Bose-Einstein Condensates Steven Burrows Tue, 07/08/2025 - 13:45

Paul Beale / ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Physics Director of Alumni Relations

The first Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC) was first created by Eric Cornell, Carl Wieman, Mike Anderson, Jason Ensher, and Michael Matthews on June 5, 1995 in JILA at the University of Colorado Boulder. This new state of matter was first predicted 70 years earlier. Satyendra Nath Bose first described the quantum statistics of what we now call bosons, and Albert Einstein extended the theory to show that non-interacting bosons could condense into a single macroscopic quantum state at low temperature.

The group used a magneto-optical trap to cool and trap about 100,000 atoms of 87Rb, then evaporatively cooled the gas to 170 nanokelvin at which point most of the atoms condensed into the harmonic oscillator ground state of the trap. They measured the temperature and condensation by releasing the atoms by shutting off the magnetic field and allowing the pinhead-sized clump to expand ballistically for a few milliseconds. A laser pulse tuned to the resonant frequency illuminated the growing blob, and the resulting shadow was captured on CCD camera, measuring the momentum distribution of the atoms (figure below left). The data converted to a 3D representation (figure below right) shows that the blue-labeled atoms are in the asymmetric harmonic oscillator ground state, with the remainder in a symmetric gaussian whose width measures the temperature. The group immediately recognized the significance of their discovery, quietly confirmed the experimental results, and wrote and submitted the paper to Science. Their paper was published on July 14, 1995, with the cover image showing the BEC. Their discovery culminated decades of research by many physicists aimed at creating a BEC.

Cornell, Wieman, and Wolfgang Ketterle from MIT who created a BEC a few months later using sodium, shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery. Bose-Einstein Condensation has become a leading tool in atomic, molecular, and optical physics, providing extremely sensitive quantum sensing and control for use in many applications. Its extension with the development of optical lattices is the cornerstone in the development of laser-based atomic clocks.

Where are they now?

Eric Cornell is Professor Adjoint and a fellow of JILA and NIST. His recent research includes measuring the best limit on the electric dipole moment of the electron. Eric won the 2024 Outstanding Physics Teacher Award based primarily for teaching PHYS 1125 Electricity and Magnetism to first-year physics majors.

Carl Wieman is Professor of Physics and Graduate School of Education at Stanford University. He specializes in undergraduate physics and science education and pioneered the use of experimental techniques to evaluate the effectiveness of various teaching strategies for physics and other sciences. He served as Associate Director for Science in President Obama’s White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and then as Professor of Physics, and Director, Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative at the University of British Columbia. He was the founder and remains as the Senior Advisor to PhET, CU’s premier online science education interactive app developer with over 1.7 billion world-wide deliveries of over 118 apps in 128 languages.

Mike Anderson (PhDPhys’92) was a postdoc at the time of the discovery. He was President and CEO of Vescent Photonics for 17 years, and continues as a member of their Board of Directors. Prior to that he was Vice President for Engineering at Meadowlark Optics.

Jason Ensher (PhDPhys’99) is Senior Director of Engineering at nLIGHT, Inc. Prior to that he was Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Insight Photonic Solutions.

Michael Matthews (PhDPhys’99) is Sensor R&D Physicist & Engineer at Insight M. Prior to that he was Staff Hardware Engineer at Waymo, Technical Director of Sensors at AOSense, Inc., and Research Specialist at 3M.

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JILA Fellow and University of Colorado Boulder Physics professor John Bohn and JILA and NIST Fellow and University of Colorado Boulder Physics Professor Eric Cornell are awarded 2024 Physics Department Teaching Awards

Steven Burrows — Wed, 01 May 2024 17:24:52 +0000

JILA Fellow and University of Colorado Boulder Physics professor John Bohn and JILA and NIST Fellow and University of Colorado Boulder Physics Professor Eric Cornell are awarded 2024 Physics Department Teaching Awards Steven Burrows Wed, 05/01/2024 - 11:24

Kenna Hughes-Castleberry / JILA Science Communicator

Eric Cornell and John Bohn.

JILA and the University of Colorado Boulder's Department of Physics proudly announce two 2024 Physics Department Teaching Award recipients: JILA Fellow, NIST Fellow, and Professor Eric Cornell, and JILA Fellow and Professor John Bohn. These awards recognize their exceptional dedication to teaching and their profound impact on students at different levels of their academic journey.

The awards committee cited Professor Eric Cornell as being honored for his engaging approach to introductory physics, which brings the wonder of experimental atomic, molecular, and optical (AMO) physics to the classroom. His innovative teaching methods and dedication to foundational concepts helped students connect deeply with the material.

Cornell, who also won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2001, was instrumental in developing courses that educate and inspire first-year physics, astrophysics, and engineering physics students. His collaboration with Professor Paul Beale in designing the General Physics for Majors course was particularly influential, creating a community where budding physicists can thrive.

Similarly, Professor John Bohn was recognized for his outstanding contributions at the physics major level. Bohn's ability to translate complex concepts into accessible learning experiences, along with some humorous jokes, has made him a pivotal figure in the academic development of advanced students.

Both professors were also lauded for their outreach efforts and commitment to teaching beyond the traditional classroom setting. This dedication ensures their influence extends beyond their immediate academic circles, inspiring a broader audience and fostering a greater appreciation of physics.

JILA and the University of Colorado Boulder's Department of Physics proudly announce two 2024 Physics Department Teaching Award recipients: JILA Fellow and NIST Fellow and Professor Eric Cornell and JILA Fellow and Professor John Bohn. These awards recognize their exceptional dedication to teaching and their profound impact on students at different levels of their academic journey.

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JILA’s Physics Frontiers (PFC) is Awarded a $25 Million Grant by the National Science Foundation (NSF)

Steven Burrows — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 21:31:40 +0000

JILA’s Physics Frontiers (PFC) is Awarded a $25 Million Grant by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Steven Burrows Tue, 09/12/2023 - 15:31

Kenna Hughes-Castleberry / JILA Science Communicator

A compilation of researchers and the research/outreach led by JILA's PFC

This science center brings together 20 researchers across JILA to collaborate to realize precise measurements and cutting-edge manipulations to harness increasingly complex quantum systems. Since its establishment in 2006, the JILA PFC’s dedication to advancing quantum research and educating the next generation of scientists has helped it to stand out as the heart of JILA’s excellence.

Origins and Foundation:

It was JILA Fellow Carl Lineberger who initially conceived the PFC. Arriving at JILA in 1968 as a postdoctoral researcher for JILA Fellow and founder Lewis Branscomb, Lineberger witnessed many changes happen at JILA throughout its decades of science. In the early 1970s, as Branscomb was looking to leave JILA, Lineberger realized that Branscomb’s departure could lead to funding constraints for JILA.

“It was really only Lou and me who knew how to get money for JILA at that time, as we both were the only ones with the strongest links to the Department of Defense (DoD),” Lineberger stated, referring to his own service in the military before arriving at JILA. “We figured that the DoD was the best place to look, as this was during the Vietnam War. The state of Colorado was in severe financial trouble, and they could not help JILA, so we had to get money outside of the university. And I knew all the people in defense and the National Science Foundation who were important for funding where no one else did.”

In the wake of Branscomb’s departure in 1972, Lineberger began thinking about leveraging his network to secure JILA funding.

It wasn’t until the mid-1970s when Lineberger led the effort to draft the first group grant for many quantum researchers within JILA, as JILA’s astrophysicists had already secured funding. This grant began a new era in research at JILA, allowing scientists to push the boundaries of knowledge and explore uncharted territories in physics.

After proposing an extensive collaboration between several JILA scientists, the team submitted their application. Then they waited nervously, as group grants were highly unusual during the 1970s, and the scientists weren’t sure if the NSF would accept it. In fact, the NSF funded this initial group grant and would continue to renew JILA’s funding till the early 2000s when the NSF decided to restructure the group grant altogether.

“It’s tough for the NSF to compare a group grant to an individual scientist’s work,” explained JILA and NIST Fellow Eric Cornell, a Nobel Laureate who served as the PFC Director for over a decade. “You can’t really compare the two applications.”

The NSF decided to institute a new grant type to overcome this challenge, as other institutes also submitted group applications. In 2001, several PFCs were established with the NSF’s new grant structure. However, it wouldn’t be until 2006 that JILA’s group grant was transformed into an official PFC. “It was 50% luck and 50% opportunity,” added Lineberger.

The vision behind the PFC was to bring together researchers from diverse backgrounds to collaborate on projects that transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries. “Carl Lineberger took very seriously the idea that JILA should always be renewing itself,” Cornell added. “What that meant is it shouldn’t always be the same people always running the show.”

To implement this thought, Lineberger transitioned out of the role as the first PFC Director and passed the torch to Cornell, who became the next director in the mid-2000s.

Furthering in this spirit, Cornell just recently handed over the torch to current co-directors Ana Maria Rey and Andreas Becker. The co-directors, together with, JILA Fellows Eric Cornell, Cindy Regal, Jun Ye, and Heather Lewandowski form the executive committee that will lead and manage the Center for the next six years.

The Structure of the PFC:

While the PFC includes about 20 JILA researchers, it is led by a much smaller executive committee. “We sometimes call it an oligarchy,” stated Cornell. “As the executive committee decides things by consensus, the Director is not especially important. However, the NSF does need a point of contact for the grant, so the Director does play a role in government relations.”

Interdisciplinary Collaboration:

One of the distinguishing features of the PFC is its commitment to fostering interdisciplinary collaboration. By bringing together physicists, chemists, biologists, and other scientific experts, the PFC enables a unique environment for innovation and cross-pollination of ideas. The center encourages researchers to step outside their comfort zones and tackle complex scientific challenges from multiple perspectives, leading to breakthrough discoveries that would be difficult to achieve in isolation.

“The JILA PFC, in my point of view, is the spinal cord of JILA,” explained Rey. “The reason is that the Center serves as a connecting tissue among JILA investigators with different but complementary research interests. We all understand the added value of the Center and are excited about the scientific barriers we can overcome as a team. We are willing to take risks and commit to very challenging problems that have long-term horizons which are only possible by the joint and synergistic capabilities of the investigators.”

Milestones and Breakthroughs:

Over the years, the PFC and JILA’s group grant before it, have embarked on numerous research projects that have pushed the boundaries of physics. From exploring the properties of ultracold molecules to developing advanced precision measurement techniques, the PFC has consistently been at the forefront of pioneering research. Researchers at the center have significantly contributed to areas such as quantum information science, atomic and molecular physics, quantum optics, ultrafast science, and condensed matter physics.

The PFC has achieved several significant milestones and breakthroughs throughout its history. In ultracold physics, JILA Fellows, including Cornell and Carl Wieman, won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2001 for creating the first Bose-Einstein Condensate—a remarkable state of matter with extraordinary properties. This groundbreaking achievement opened up new avenues for exploring quantum phenomena and laid the foundation for subsequent research in ultracold physics.

Another notable milestone came in 2008 when the PFC researchers developed an atomic clock that was accurate to within one second every 300 million years. This achievement revolutionized timekeeping technology and led to advancements in global positioning systems (GPS), telecommunication networks, and fundamental tests of the laws of physics.

That same year PFC investigators Deborah Jin, Jun Ye, and John Bohn, with input from David Nesbitt, prepared the first high-space-density KRb molecular gas, by combining trapping and cooling methods with frequency comb spectroscopy. This development set the stage for impressive investigations on quantum chemistry and many-body physics which are currently generating even richer and faster worldwide developments.

The PFC has also made significant strides in quantum information science. In 2017, JILA scientists successfully created a long-lived quantum memory for photons, a crucial step towards developing quantum computers and secure quantum communication networks. These advancements have the potential to revolutionize computing and information processing, opening up a new era of technology.

Furthermore, the PFC helped to push forward many new ideas in the development of ultrafast lasers, a technology used collaboratively in many PFC labs. Most recently, the path towards polarization control of ultrashort laser light pulses over a broad wavelength regime, led by PFC investigators Margaret Murnane and Henry Kapteyn, was supported using PFC funds.

“As the years passed,” Cornell explained, “the amount of money given by the NSF for the PFC got smaller and smaller due to inflation.” However, the slack in funding was taken up by individual grants for each scientist. While this group grant once was a more significant source of JILA’s funding, it has now become less so as other organizations, such as the Department of Energy, fund JILA.

“While the money is useful, the PFC has become greater than the sum of its parts,” Cornell stated. “It’s much more of a way to keep us thinking about research collaborations and to wish each other well in our projects. It’s about making it a place that good students want to come to and good staff wants to stay at.”

For Rey and Becker, the feeling is similar. “We are nevertheless excited and proud to report that in this re-competition, in contrast to prior ones, NSF provides an increase of the JILA PFC budget,” said Rey. “This is exciting and will allow us to attract an even larger poll of fantastic and productive students and postdocs and undertake broader outreach activities that will benefit our community.”

The PFC’s Influence on the JILA Community

When examining how the PFC has impacted JILA’s community and culture, JILA’s Chief Operations Officer Beth Kroger agreed with Cornell. “The NSF PFC funding enables JILA to provide critical infrastructure in support of the transformational research done at JILA,” she stated. “A key component of JILA’s infrastructure is the JILA Shops which include Scientific Instrument Design/Fabrication, Electronics Design/Fabrication and Computing, as well user facilities such as our Metrology Lab, Clean Room, and student workshops. The JILA Shops are instrumental in advancing research and providing mentoring and hands-on applied learning for scientists-in-training. This is just one example of the impact of the PFC.”

Educating Future Leaders

The PFC's contributions to the field of physics extend beyond groundbreaking discoveries. It has nurtured generations of scientists, providing an environment fostering creativity, collaboration, and scientific excellence. The center has trained numerous graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to make a lasting impact in their respective fields.

“During the next PFC grant period we plan to initiate new training and mentoring programs at JILA which should further help our graduate students and postdocs in preparing them for their future careers in academia and industry”, said Becker.

Furthermore, a key part of the PFC has been its outreach program, PISEC, or “Partnerships for Informal Science Education in the Community”. A semester-long afterschool program where CU volunteers work with K-12 students on inquiry-based physics experiments. It is mainly targeted to students from underrepresented groups in STEM: primarily Hispanic/Latinx with low income. The goal is to cultivate in the students involved an interest in science, and facilitate pathways into STEM degrees.

PISEC is a very important part of the JILA-PFC. Jessica Hoehn is the current full-time PFC director for public engagement. She in collaboration with executive member Heather Lewandowski and Eric Cornell are envisioning exciting new directions in which the PISEC can further expand and become even better during this funding period.

Thanks to the $25 million grant awarded to JILA’s PFC, its vision and ongoing projects can continue to push the boundaries of quantum science and influence JILA’s culture, community, students, and postdoctoral researchers.

The JILA Physics Frontiers Center (PFC), an NSF-funded science center within JILA (a world-leading physics research institute), has recently been awarded a $25 million grant after a re-competition process.

This science center brings together 20 researchers across JILA to collaborate to realize precise measurements and cutting-edge manipulations to harness increasingly complex quantum systems. Since its establishment in 2006, the JILA PFC’s dedication to advancing quantum research and educating the next generation of scientists has helped it to stand out as the heart of JILA’s excellence.

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Sizing Up an Electron’s Shape

Steven Burrows — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 17:45:26 +0000

Sizing Up an Electron’s Shape Steven Burrows Thu, 07/06/2023 - 11:45

Kenna Hughes-Castleberry / JILA Science Communicator

The most precise measurement yet of eEDM using electrons confined within HfF+ molecular ions. Image credit: Steven Burrows / JILA

Some of the biggest questions about our universe may be solved by scientists using its tiniest particles. Since the 1960s, physicists have been looking at particle interactions to understand an observed imbalance of matter and antimatter in the universe. Much of the work has focused on interactions that violate charge and parity (CP) symmetry. This symmetry refers to a lack of change in our universe if all particles’ charges and orientations were inverted. “This charge and parity symmetry is the symmetry that high-energy physicists say needs to be violated to result in this imbalance between matter and antimatter,” explained JILA research associate Luke Caldwell. To try to find evidence of this violation of CP symmetry, JILA and NIST Fellows Jun Ye and Eric Cornell, and their teams, including Caldwell, collaborated to measure the electron electric dipole moment (eEDM), which is often used as a proxy measure for the CP symmetry violation. The eEDM is an asymmetric distortion of the electron’s charge distribution along the axis of its spin. To try to measure this distortion, the researchers used a complex setup of lasers and a novel ion trap. Their results, published in Science as the cover story and Physical Review A, leveraged a longer experiment time to improve the precision measurement by a factor of 2.4, setting new records.

Measuring the eEDM

To understand how physicists measure the electron's electric dipole moment, it may be helpful to consider a clinical trial for a new medication. To ensure the trial is effective, doctors will run a study where half the sick participants take the drug in question and the other half take a placebo. If the doctors see an improvement in patients that took the drug compared to the placebo group, they can conclude that their medication is effective. This approach helps to control for effects that impact both groups. Now imagine an (admittedly dystopian) world where the researchers have created an ‘anti-drug,’ shown to make sick patients worse by the same amount as the regular drug improves their health. A new clinical trial could be organized, where half of the patients take the regular drug and the others take the anti-drug. The new trial would have all of the benefits of the previous trial but any effects of the drug would be even more clear. This drug and anti-drug analogy can then be applied to the electron symmetry.
As Caldwell explained: “We look for the energy shift of an electron subject to an electric field in one direction [“aligned” electron] by comparing it to an electron subject to an electric field in the opposite direction [“anti-aligned” electron], where the energy shift caused by the eEDM is equal and opposite. By measuring both simultaneously we are protected from effects which shift the energy of both electrons in the same direction.” In measuring the difference between the aligned electron and the anti-aligned electron for each energy oscillation between the particles, the researchers could determine a value for eEDM.

To measure this energy difference, the researchers manipulated hafnium fluoride ions in an ion trap. The experiment began with a solid rod of hafnium in the experimental chamber. A pulsed laser was then used to isolate hafnium in the presence of sulfur-hexafluoride gas, where the two react to create neutral hafnium-fluoride molecules. Then the molecules flew down a tube where they enter the ion trap. “The entire cloud of gas enters the ion trap at about the same time,” JILA graduate student Trevor Wright stated. “When it reaches the center of the trap, we turn on the ionization lasers. These lasers each emit a pulse of light that overlaps with the cloud of gas and are tuned to certain frequencies which resonate with hafnium fluoride. So, the hafnium fluoride molecules flying through get ionized, and lose one of their electrons. While this is happening, we turn on the voltages on our electrodes to stop the positively charged hafnium fluoride molecules, while the rest of the cloud will fly through the trap and out of the experiment.” Using this process, the researchers could prepare the system for further studying hafnium.

New Records in Measurement

A new record was set for the length of “interrogation time” for the experiment—how long the researchers could trap and manipulate the electrons— at three seconds. While this may seem like a short amount of time, most quantum physics experiments run from femtoseconds (10⁻¹⁵ seconds) to nanoseconds (10-9 seconds), making three seconds seem like an eternity. Expanding on why the interrogation time is helpful in improving the measurement precision, Caldwell explained: “Think of a pendulum. If you wanted to measure the time period of a pendulum, you could just measure its swing once, and then stop its motion. But you’d have some error when you press stop. So, a better way to do it would be to let the pendulum swing 100 times, and then press stop, and then divide your answer by 100. Then, you get to divide your measurement error by 100, and you get a much better measurement of the pendulum’s period. Our experiment is kind of similar, we are looking for an oscillation that corresponds to the electrons EDM. In our case, the measurement error doesn't come from when we press stop, but the same ideas apply. We get to divide our ‘error bar’ by how many periods of oscillation we measure. Compared to the previous generation of this experiment, and, to our competitor experiments, we can keep our molecules trapped for a very long time. So, we can measure lots and lots of oscillations.” As previous experiments clocked interrogation times at three-quarters of a second, the expanded time of three seconds was a significant leap in advancing the interrogation time of this experiment and allowing for more flexibility in measurement. “We can hold on to our particles for a really long time as compared to previous experiments,” Wright said. “And we can vary the hold time because we can stop the experiment whenever we want.” Caldwell echoed this benefit: “Unlike other experiments, because our molecules are trapped rather than in a beam, we can control the length of the interrogation time. This allows us to better characterize and reject many types of systematic error that can affect the measurement.”

Thanks to this longer interrogation time, the researchers were able to make the most precise eEDM measurement yet. “Our result was consistent with zero and we used it to set an upper bound on the size of the eEDM,” Caldwell stated. “Previous experiments have also measured the electron EDM, but with less precision. Because our error bar is smaller, we can say, with more confidence, that its value is below a certain level. Our limit is 2.4 times smaller than the previous limit.” The researcher hope to continue pushing this measurement even further to reveal more about the quantum world.

Some of the biggest questions about our universe may be solved by scientists using its tiniest particles. Since the 1960s, physicists have been looking at particle interactions to understand an observed imbalance of matter and antimatter in the universe. Much of the work has focused on interactions that violate charge and parity (CP) symmetry. This symmetry refers to a lack of change in our universe if all particles’ charges and orientations were inverted. “This charge and parity symmetry is the symmetry that high-energy physicists say needs to be violated to result in this imbalance between matter and antimatter,” explained JILA research associate Luke Caldwell. To try to find evidence of this violation of CP symmetry, JILA and NIST Fellows Jun Ye and Eric Cornell, and their teams, including Caldwell, collaborated to measure the electron electric dipole moment (eEDM), which is often used as a proxy measure for the CP symmetry violation. The eEDM is an asymmetric distortion of the electron’s charge distribution along the axis of its spin. To try to measure this distortion, the researchers used a complex setup of lasers and a novel ion trap. Their results, published in Science as the cover story and Physical Review A, leveraged a longer experiment time to improve the precision measurement by a factor of 2.4, setting new records.

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Celebrating 60 Years of JILA

Steven Burrows — Tue, 12 Jul 2022 19:46:03 +0000

Celebrating 60 Years of JILA Steven Burrows Tue, 07/12/2022 - 13:46

Kenna Hughes-Castleberry / JILA Science Communicator

Groundbreaking ceremony for the new JILA laboratory wing and the 10-story office tower, February 25, 1965 (l-r) Lewis Branscomb, Chair of JILA; Donald Hornig, Science Advisor to President Lyndon Johnson; Joseph Smiley, CU President, and Robert Huntoon, Director of the Institute for Basic Standards at NBS. Credit: University of Colorado Publications Service

This year, JILA celebrates its 60th anniversary. Officially established on April 13, 1962, as a joint institution between the University of Colorado Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), JILA has become a world leader in physics research. Its rich history includes three Nobel laureates, groundbreaking work in laser development, atomic clocks, underlying dedication to precision measurement, and even competitive sports leagues. The process of creating this science goliath was not always straightforward and took the dedication and hard work of many individuals.

The idea for JILA came from a 1958 meeting of the International Astronomical Union in Moscow. Dr. Lewis Branscombe, a founding member and the head of the atomic physics department of the National Bureau of Standards (NBS, which would later become NIST) proposed an institution for laboratory astrophysics to co-founder, and professor of astrophysics at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��, Dr. Richard Thomas. As Branscombe was directly funded by the government, and Thomas by the university, they realized that the best option for such an institution would be a joint establishment between the two entities. Together with the third founding member, Dr. Michael Seaton, a theorist at University College London, they toured nine universities in 1960 and 1961 to find a suitable home for the institution. Finally, the trio settled on ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� as the location for their new institution. This was in part due to the President of the university at the time, Quigg Newton, who was supportive of their cause.

In April of 1962, JILA was founded, standing for the Joint Institute of Laboratory Astrophysics. Laboratory astrophysics was of particular interest to the International Astronomical Union as it focused on topics ranging from studying the Sun’s visible light spectrum to developing retroreflecting mirrors.

Aerial view of the newly completed JILA tower situated on the University of Colorado at Boulder campus, 1967. Credit: University of Colorado Publications Service

Trying to find a building on the campus to house JILA, ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��'s Chief Financial Officer Leo Hill worked with both the NBS and National Science Foundation to pay rent for two floors of the old State Armory building. The NBS also provided funds for laboratory equipment. JILA began construction for its own building shortly after, with the first part, the B-wing, completed in 1966, and the JILA tower finished in 1967. JILA added two more wings to its building, the S-wing (dedicated in 1988), and the X-wing in 2011. There are plans for further expansion with a Y-wing to be built, but nothing is currently in process.

Setting up in the Old Armory building, the JILA scientists (by the early 1960s there were seven scientists at JILA) established several rules that would help JILA function properly. These rules centered around leadership, funding, and fellowships. It was negotiated that with JILA's creation, the NBS would provide instruments and laboratories, while ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� would provide researchers and land for the institution. With its unique agreements and roles, JILA’s institute was relatively free to make its own way scientifically. In 1961, ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��'s Board of Regents approved the title of professor adjoint for any NBS faculty who taught classes at the University. This further solidified the connection between the university and the NBS and made it easier for JILA to attract new scientists.

One of these scientists was Dr. John “Jan” Hall, who was an expert in laser systems and who had previously worked at the NBS location in Washington DC. Though JILA was created during the height of the space race, with the idea being to help the U.S. win this race, Hall helped move JILA in a new direction with laser development. JILA still had ties to astrophysics and astronomy, such as developing lunar lasers for the space race, but the times were changing, and JILA was shifting its research focus to other topics.

Close up of entrance to the old State Armory Building, JILA’s first home on the University of Colorado campus. Credit: JILA

By the late 1960s into the 1970s, JILA's fields were expanding to include laser physics, atomic physics, and others. Hall, at the helm of this shift, helped develop the first high-precision lasers at JILA. His work on these systems would later garner him a Nobel Prize in Physics in 2005.

The 1970s brought a deeper sense of community within JILA, as it was described as a “fun, fast, and free-spirited place.” It was during this time that, along with rafting or ski trips, JILAns also created their own sports leagues, including softball and volleyball. In 1974, JILA elected its first female chair, Katharine Gebbie. Gebbie would later move over to NIST and become their Chief of Quantum Physics Division in 1988, but before she did, she helped recruit and support other female JILA Fellows in JILA. The fields of study within the institution also diversified, as in 1977, the NBS changed the name of their JILA division to the “Quantum Physics Division,” predicting the role that quantum physics would play in JILA'S future.

In the 1980s, JILA was beginning to modernize with the help of the early internet. Thanks to JILA fellow Judah Levine and colleagues the Automated Computer Time Service was brought online, accessible through dial-up modems. This was a monumental first step in modernizing time transfer, as users had access to atomic clock time. By 1988, JILA’s population consisted of more than 200 people, including 23 Fellows. It was also the year that the National Bureau of Standards (NBS)became the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), changing its infrastructure and goals.

More breakthroughs occurred in the 1990s, as JILA once more shifted its mission to reflect NIST's mandate for developing precision measurement, and educating graduate students in future technology. In 1994, JILA had become more than its previous name implied, and dropped the definition of its acronym as the Joint Institute of Laboratory Astrophysics in acknowledgement of the broader scope of science conducted there. In 1995, Nobel-prize winning research was performed by JILA Fellows Carl Weiman and Eric Cornell, as they discovered the Bose-Einstein-Condensate (BEC), a special state of matter helpful for studying quantum dynamics. Nineteen ninety-six brought the 500th Fellows’ meeting, as well as diversity initiatives to make the community more inclusive.

JILA scientists studying in the library on the 10th floor of the JILA tower. Credit: JILA

The 1990s was also an important decade for laser physics at JILA. By 1997, JILA identified seven fields of physics that researchers were studying: atomic physics, chemical physics, materials physics, optical physics, molecular physics, precision measurement, and astrophysics. Laser physics was an underlying study in many of these fields. In 1999, JILA Fellows Margaret Murnane and her husband Henry Kapteyn created what was then the fastest tabletop laser system. That same year, Fellows Jan Hall and Jun Ye developed the first optical frequency comb laser, a tool used by researchers to study optical physics. With these important developments, JILA was quickly establishing a reputation as a world leader in physics research. This reputation boosted JILA's success, as, by the late 1990s, the institution was producing 5–10% of the nation's new Ph.D. graduates in atomic, molecular, and optical (AMO) physics.

The success continued into the 2000s, as the decade brought three Nobel Prizes to JILA. In 2001, Eric Cornell and Carl Weiman were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work in 1995 on the BEC. The State of Colorado established March 6th as “Carl Weinman and Eric Cornell day” to honor the scientists. A few years later in 2005, Jan Hall also received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on laser systems and for developing the first optical frequency comb. JILA also added biophysics as a new field of study, which was helped by the addition of JILA Fellow Thomas Perkins, who worked in this area.

Three JILA Fellows were honored during the 2010s by being selected by then-President Obama to fill important leadership positions within scientific governing groups, including the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. These Fellows included Carl Weinman, Margaret Murnane, and Carl Lineberger. JILA also celebrated its 50th birthday on April 13th, 2012.

JILA tower (circa 1966) under construction in front of the recently completed laboratory wing, now known as the B-wing of the Duane Physical Laboratories complex. Credit: JILA

Since then, JILA Fellows have received many prestigious scientific awards and grants. The decades of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers who have worked at the institution have gone on to lead successful careers and scientific efforts for other institutions around the world. JILA has also helped spawn many spin-off companies, including 12 companies based in Colorado. These companies range in their products and technology and include companies such as ColdQuanta, Hall Stable Lasers, High Precision Devices, KM Labs, Vescent, to name a few.

With 60 years of scientific research and groundbreaking discoveries, and many successful scientific careers launched, hundreds of lives impacted, it is no surprise that JILA continues to be a global leader in physics research and a pillar within the scientific community. As JILA celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, we look not only to past accomplishments but also to the future, excited to be carrying on such a rich and fulfilling legacy.

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The University of Colorado's President Saliman Visits JILA

Steven Burrows — Mon, 23 May 2022 19:53:44 +0000

The University of Colorado's President Saliman Visits JILA Steven Burrows Mon, 05/23/2022 - 13:53

Kenna Hughes-Castleberry / JILA Science Communicator

President Todd Saliman visits JILA and NIST Fellow Eric Cornell and his laboratory team

University of Colorado President Todd Saliman visited JILA this past week and toured the laboratories at the invitation of JILA and NIST Fellow Eric Cornell.

Saliman was impressed by the research team and Fellows and applauded their work.

“You are all working to change the world,” President Saliman said.

His visit was due to an invitation from JILA and NIST Fellow Eric Cornell to tour his laboratories. Cornell has been a scientist at JILA since the 1990s and research impacts the fundamental areas of atomic, molecular, and optical physics well as quantum mechanics. His work on the Bose-Einstein Condensate, an ultracold quantum system, won him and fellow researcher Carl Weinman Nobel Prizes in 2001. From that time on, Cornell has continued to research atomic and molecular optics, mentoring many graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in their careers.

President Saliman viewed two of Cornell's laboratories, looking at several laser systems the researchers use to study electrons and other particles. Cornell, for his part, was delighted to explain his research and introduced his entire laboratory team to President Saliman. The President was amazed by not only Cornell's research but the team, ranging from recently graduated undergraduates to post-doctoral researchers. President Saliman asked Cornell about the impact of his research on both scientific discovery and his work mentoring students and researchers in his laboratory.

“The students and post-docs are my pride and joy,” Cornell stated.

Philip Matokyn, Executive Director of ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��'s CUbit Quantum Initiative joined the visit. CUbit connects quantum researchers across the University with Colorado and the broader CO ecosystem. quantum companies. Makotyn, who studied at JILA under Eric Cornell for his Ph.D., spoke to President Saliman about the growing quantum community within the state. President Saliman was engaged about the impact of quantum technology and CU and JILA’s historic role in the field.

Before ending the tour, the president asked to take a selfie with the Cornell laboratory team. Many of the team members spoke briefly with the president about their work. President Saliman asked how many hours they worked, with the researchers replying that a typical day ranged from seven to ten hours.

University of Colorado President Todd Saliman visited JILA this past week and toured the laboratories at the invitation of JILA and NIST Fellow Eric Cornell. Saliman was impressed by the research team and Fellows and applauded their work. “You are all working to change the world,” President Saliman said.

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Wiggles in Time: The Search for Dark Matter Continues

Steven Burrows — Thu, 17 Jun 2021 18:56:59 +0000

Wiggles in Time: The Search for Dark Matter Continues Steven Burrows Thu, 06/17/2021 - 12:56

Kenna Hughes-Castleberry / JILA Science Communicator

A representation of time oscillations in the EDM due to interactions with the dark matter particles around the EDM. Image credit: Steven Burrows / JILA

In a new paper published in Physical Review Letters, JILA and NIST Fellows Eric Cornell, Jun Ye, and Konrad Lehnert developed a method for measuring a potential dark matter candidate, known as an axion-like particle. Axion-like particles are a potential class of dark matter particle which could explain some aspects of galactic structure. This work is also a result of collaboration with Victor Flambaum who is a leading theorist studying possible violations of fundamental symmetries.

The microscopic nature of dark matter has been a looming question within physics for decades. According to first author Tanya Roussy: "Dark matter is one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in modern physics. And the problem is that it could be anything. We don't know what it is." Dark matter is a tricky thing to study---so far, the only way to detect its presence is through its gravitational signatures in astrophysical measurements. Being able to detect dark matter through its couplings to earth-bound ordinary matter or fields would allow physicists to better understand the particle nature of dark matter, which is essential for understanding the majority of matter in our universe.

How to Find Something Invisible

Searching for the nature of dark matter wasn't straightforward or easy. Roussy explained: "You kind of have to look everywhere, which is really hard. If we had some kind of guess for what it might be, we could narrow our search and maybe find it. So being able to do searches over a really big parameter space is really important right now. In the case of dark matter, we consider mass. So, there's 40 orders of magnitude that the mass could be in. And that's really, really big. So being able to search over something like seven orders of magnitude is a nice way to put a dent in that search."

When trying to measure an elusive particle, sensitivity is key. JILA’s team leveraged a very sensitive measurement they already had to look for signatures of their dark matter candidate: their ongoing electron electric dipole moment measurement (eEDM). JILA fellow Konrad Lehnert noted that "the main significance of this paper is that the Cornell and Ye group experiment that tries to measure EDM would also be sensitive to axion-like particles." If the dark matter in our universe was actually made up of axion-like particles, things like the eEDM would actually “wiggle” in time as the dark matter waves passed by them, like a rubber duck bobbing on the waves in a bathtub. According to Roussy: "We took an old data set and reanalyzed it…until now we always assumed our signal was constant in time. Instead we said, 'what if it actually wiggles in time?' So, we were basically checking for a wiggle in the signal." Lehnert’s group had experience in other axion search experiments and assisted with the data analysis.

This collaboration allowed the team to develop a set of protocols for using eEDMs to detect axion-like particles. "What we did was put together a recipe that other people can use to do these kinds of searches on their own, if they have sensitive measurements of this sort." Roussy commented. "We think this is better than many other recipes that are out there because it solves some problems that people have been ignoring until now." These protocols will hopefully assist other labs in searching for the nature of dark matter, and advance scientific knowledge about dark matter in a more efficient way.

This work was supported by the Marsico Foundation, NIST, and the NSF.

In a new paper published in Physical Review Letters, JILA and NIST Fellows Eric Cornell, Jun Ye, and Konrad Lehnert developed a method for measuring a potential dark matter candidate, known as an axion-like particle. Axion-like particles are a potential class of dark matter particle which could explain some aspects of galactic structure. This work is also a result of collaboration with Victor Flambaum who is a leading theorist studying possible violations of fundamental symmetries.

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How universal is universality?

Steven Burrows — Mon, 09 Dec 2019 19:24:54 +0000

How universal is universality? Steven Burrows Mon, 12/09/2019 - 12:24

Rebecca Jacobson / JILA Science Communicator

The van der Waals universality is a sort of "sweet spot", a distance at which three atoms' interactions can be predicted with simpler two-body equations. The Cornell Group has found that distance may not be so universal after all, and that the species of atom may change that "sweet spot." Image credit: Steven Burrows / JILA

We understand pretty well how a single atom behaves. Two atoms interacting with each other? Still solvable. But it becomes exponentially more complicated to characterize how three atoms or particles interact with each other, explained Xin Xie, a graduate student in the Cornell Group at JILA.

“We study three-body physics because there are still mysteries in this interaction,” Xie said.

Those interactions—whether particles will repel each other, smash together or just orbit each other in perfect harmony—dominate the quantum world. Understanding how those forces work inside a simple hydrogen atom, with its single positive proton and negative electron, is relatively easy, explained JILA Fellow Eric Cornell. But most atoms are much more complicated.

“Atoms aren’t like protons. They’re full of pulleys and bells and whistles,” he said. All of those structures in the “guts” of each species of atom meant that when three atoms got too close to each other, no mathematical formula could predict how all three would interact, Cornell said.

But years of experimental data found there was a sweet spot, a universal range in which the behaviors of three atoms can be decomposed into the more solvable two atom problem. At that range, the atoms are stopped en route to each other, keeping them at just the right distance.

That range was dictated by the van der Waals force. And by knowing the strength of the van der Waals force between two atoms, we can easily predict the shortest distance that three atoms can get without either smashing into each other or repelling off each other. It didn’t seem to matter which species of atoms you looked at; the van der Waals force always dictates three-atom interactions.

For the last decade, this van der Waals universality had been pretty widely accepted…until now. Xie and the Cornell Group recently found this universality has a limit. Their findings raise an important question: When it comes to three-body interactions, just how important are those pulleys, bells and whistles, those innate structures that make up an individual species of atom?

“A long time ago people thought these structures were so important. Then people found that maybe they’re not that important,” Xie explained. “But then we claim that they still matter…it can cause some deviation from the van der Waals universality.”

Take it to the limit

To find the limit, you have to really dig down and look at the atoms very closely, Cornell said. When they’re warm, atoms in a gas cloud bounce around like billiard balls. To measure their interactions, you need to slow the atoms down, and that means making them cold—really cold.

Xie and her team used lasers to bring a cloud of potassium atoms down to 300 nanoKelvin, about -459 degrees Fahrenheit, hovering just above absolute zero.

Then they change the magnetic field around the atoms to force them to interact. As the atoms interact, the cloud decays. The more strongly the atoms interact, the faster it decays. The decay rate reveals information on the spatial extent of a three-atom system.

But Xie and her team found their potassium atoms does not quite fall into the universal group, and within a very narrow margin of error. Clearly, van der Waals universality was not as universal as it seemed.

“Sometimes, those ‘guts’ of the atom matter,” Cornell concluded.

Cold atoms in space

The next step for this experiment lies beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. In the vacuum of space, the atoms can reach even colder temperatures, and possibly reveal some new information. So, this December a refrigerator-size version of this experiment will start operation on the International Space Station.

Finding the limits of universality has greater implications for physics. Ultracold atoms are often at the center of precise metrology, like optical atomic clocks which use cold strontium atoms. If those atoms start interacting with each other in an unpredictable way, it could throw off your clock, and you wouldn’t know why, Xie said.

“You can’t account for all the degrees of freedom in a physical system,” Xie pointed out. But experiments like this show what “ingredients” are important to understand these interactions. Testing the limits of universality helps physicists better predict how other atoms will behave.

“If we understand this species (potassium), we can apply our model to a different species,” Xie added.

This research was published in Physical Review Letters on December 2, 2019.

Understanding how three atoms interact when they are close together is really tricky. For the past decade scientists agreed that there was a universal “sweet spot”, a range called the van der Waals universality. In that range, three atoms were close enough that their interactions could be explained with simpler two-body formulas. But the Cornell Group at JILA is testing the limits of van der Waals universality, which could help form a better predictive model for other atom species.

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And, The Answer Is . . . Still Round

Steven Burrows — Mon, 09 Oct 2017 17:21:53 +0000

And, The Answer Is . . . Still Round Steven Burrows Mon, 10/09/2017 - 11:21

Julie Phillips / Science Communicator

Is the electron completely round, or is it ever so slightly egg-shaped because it has electric dipole moment? The Ye and Cornell groups are looking for the answer to this fundamental question with a sophisticated trapped-ion apparatus that includes a rotating electric field. Image credit: Steven Burrows / KILA

Why are we here? This is an age-old philosophical question. However, physicists like Will Cairncross, Dan Gresh and their advisors Eric Cornell and Jun Ye actually want to figure out out why people like us exist at all. If there had been the same amount of matter and antimatter created in the Big Bang, the future of stars, galaxies, our Solar System, and life would have disappeared in a flash of light as matter and antimatter recombined. But we know that’s not what happened. After matter-antimatter recombination, sufficient matter remained to form galaxies, stars, planets, and physicists who wonder why on Earth things turned out the way they did.

The JILA team thinks precision measurement of the shape of the electron may help them figure out the answer. They think that in the beginning of the Universe, there must have been a slight excess of matter vs antimatter caused by tiny asymmetries in fundamental particles such as the electron. If, for example, the electron is ever-so-slightly egg-shaped (rather than round), then it may help explain why the scientists doing the experiment and the rest of the material Universe exist.

The challenge faced by the Cornell and Ye group is that an asymmetry in the electron’s shape––called an electron electric dipole moment, or eEDM––would be vanishingly small. If an atomic nucleus were the size of our Solar System, then the eEDM (if there were one) would measure only a few millimeters. The actual eEDM (if there is one) might end up being measured in nonillionths or even decillionths of a centimeter (10-30––10-33 cm). These are breathtakingly short distances that require sophisticated physics experiments to precisely measure.

Determining the length of something this tiny not only requires creative experimental design, but also a profound understanding and application of precision measurement techniques. Fortunately, precision measurement of ultrasmall things is a specialty of the Cornell and Ye groups. The team recently used its sophisticated trapped-ion, rotating electric-field apparatus in its latest series of precision eEDM measurements.

The Cornell-Ye collaboration determined an upper limit for the eEDM of 1.3 x 10-28 e cm, which is consistent with the upper limit of 9.3 x 10-29 e cm found in a different experiment by the ACME collaboration between Harvard and Yale in 2014. In other words, even at such tiny distances as 10-28–10-29 cm, the electron is still round.

One very cool thing about this experiment is that the JILA team is positive its measurements were free of any bias on the part of the experimenters. The researchers did a year’s worth of experiments in different experimental configurations, all the while measuring the eEDM blind. Instead of having their computer tell them the results of individual measurements, they programmed the computer to add a random number to the results, so what the researchers saw after each measurement was a meaningless number. They did their experiments like this to keep their personal expectations, or bias, out of the results.

Then after a year, they asked the computer for the answer. The answer was consistent with zero, meaning that at the level they could resolve, the electron was still round. However, Cairncross, Gresh, and their team aren’t about to give up. They’re building a new experiment expected to resolve length measurements of 10-30 cm, tantilizingly close to where the researchers expect to see evidence of an eEDM, if it exists.

The researchers responsible for this multiyear project to seek out and measure the eEDM include graduate students Will Cairncross, Dan Gresh, and Tanya Roussy, research associate Yan Zhou, former research associate Matt Grau, JILA Ph.D. and former research associate Kevin Cossel as well as Fellows Jun Ye and Eric Cornell. The eEDM paper was highlighted in PRL's Viewpoint by Nick Hutzler.

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It’s Triplets!

Steven Burrows — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 17:29:25 +0000

It’s Triplets! Steven Burrows Thu, 10/05/2017 - 11:29

Julie Phillips / Science Communicator

By quickly lowering the magnetic field in a Bose-Einstein condensate, Catherine Klauss and her colleagues in the Jin-Cornell group made a lot of two-atom molecules of rubidium (⁸⁵Rb₂). They also directly observed and identified‚ for the first time ever in an ultracold gas‚ about 8% of their molecules as Efimov molecules made of three rubidium atoms (⁸⁵Rb3). Image credit: Steven Burrows / JILA

Newly minted JILA Ph.D. Catherine Klauss and her colleagues in the Jin and Cornell group decided to see what would happen to a Bose-Einstein condensate of Rubidium-85 (⁸⁵Rb) atoms if they suddenly threw the whole experiment wildly out of equilibrium by quickly lowering the magnetic field through a Feshbach resonance.¹ Theoretically, this maneuver is predicted to make the atoms infinitely attracted to each other, and at the same time, infinitely repulsed by each other.

“This is a really crazy regime, and things happened really fast,” explained Klauss. “At this resonance, the energy of the atom pairs equaled the energy of molecules, and the interactions were going on like crazy.”

At first, Klauss and her colleagues thought they were losing most of the atoms in the experiment. However, they soon discovered the atoms were actually still there even though the researchers couldn’t see them any longer. The atoms had been transformed into molecules, which had to be probed differently.

Once the researchers realized they’d made molecules, they decided to study them. First, they held the molecules at a specific magnetic field and watched them decay away by turning back into atoms. But, no matter how many times they repeated the experiment, there was always a two-component decay: a fast one and a slower one. The slower decay varied with the density of the initial atom sample, which was expected for a two-atom molecule, or dimer (⁸⁵Rb₂).

But the initial decay was happening much too fast to involve dimers. After consulting with JILA theorist José D’Incao, Klauss and her colleagues concluded they were making three-atom molecules, or trimers. And, the trimers were almost certainly the Efimov molecules (⁸⁵Rb₃) that have been studied theoretically for nearly 50 years, including work by D’Incao over the past decade. In this experiment, about 8% of the ultracold ⁸⁵Rb atoms in the original BEC formed the exotic Efimov molecules.

“This is the first direct observation of Efimov molecules in an ultracold gas that we’ve already positively identified,” Klauss said. “You can tell these molecules apart from dimers because the Efimov trimers die faster. José’s theory predicted that Efimov trimers would have a lifetime of about 100 microseconds (10^-4 s), and that’s exactly what we see in the lab.”

The researchers responsible for discovering and investigating the 85Rb triplets included Klauss, graduate student Xin Xie, University of Colorado Boulder undergraduate student Carlos Lopez-Abadia, senior research associate José D’Incao, Fellows Deborah Jin and Eric Cornell as well as Zoran Hadzibabic of the University of Cambridge.––Julie Phillips

1. Near a Feshbach resonance, small changes in the magnetic field have dramatic effects on the interactions of atoms in an ultracold gas.

Newly minted JILA Ph.D. Catherine Klauss and her colleagues in the Jin and Cornell group decided to see what would happen to a Bose-Einstein condensate of Rubidium-85 (85Rb) atoms if they suddenly threw the whole experiment wildly out of equilibrium by quickly lowering the magnetic field through a Feshbach resonance.

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