SmallTalks "Probing states of matter with fractional charge in experiments with rotating ultracold neutral atoms"

Abstract 

In 1851, Léon Foucault famously suspended a 67-metre long wire from the dome of the Panthéon in Paris with a 28-kg heavy weight on the bottom: the Foucault pendulum. As the pendulum was displaced, its oscillation axis precessed throughout the day, revealing that the earth is rotating and we are in a rotating frame of reference. The same physics illustrated by Foucault is nowadays used in experiments with rotating ultracold atoms to simulate the strongly correlated physics of electrons in a magnetic field. The key observation is that the Coriolis force in a rotating frame is mathematically equivalent to the Lorentz force on a charged particle. However, since rotating frames also have a centrifugal force, it is a difficult experimental challenge to keep trapped atoms confined for rapid rotations (corresponding to large simulated magnetic fields). I will discuss my recent work that shows how a rapid-rotation limit is not necessary to access some of the most unexpected physics in modern time, such as fractionally charged particles.