Welcome to the AMO Lab of Wendell Hill, at the University of Maryland

 

The experiments performed in the Hill group focus on field-induced quantum-correlated motion of atoms, electrons, and ions,as well as virtual pairs of electrons and positrons. Projects generally grouped into three broad categories: ultracold, ultrafast, and ultraintense.

 

In the ultracold projects, we exploit thermal and quantum-degenerate gases to study nuetral-atom analogs of a variety of phenomena from superfluidity to tunneling. We also have an interest in using quantum-degenerate ensembles of atoms to create Hamiltonians to simulate dynamic gauge conditions that will enable, for example, analogs of pair production to be investigated. The overall goal is to create new arenas where cold atoms can reveal hertofore hidden details of fundamental quantum processes.

 

Our ultrafast projects explore dynamics at timescales ranging from hundreds of femtoseconds to a few tens of attoseconds. These timescales are associated with indigenous motion of atoms in molecules as bonds are formed and broken (femtoseconds) and electrons when they are exited to and/or leave from bound and quasi-bound electronic states in atoms and molecules (attoseconds), especially when inner shells are involved. The aim is to enable engineered quantum dynamics at the atomic level.

 

At the high-intensity extreme our studies fall into the realm of fundamental physics and applications. On the fundamental side, we are interested in the quantum vacuum (QVAC), which is composed of ephemeral particle-antiparticle pairs, and novel tests of quantum electrodynamics (QED). With the advent of multi-petawatt lasers, we are ready to embark on a new era of study at intensities approaching 10²⁵ W/cm² . While well below the threshold where the vacuum is predicted to breakdown into copious electron-positron pairs, this new intensity regime will enable nonlinear QED terms of the QVAC Lagrangian to be investigated. Our primary goal is to make a quantitative measurement of the vacuum birefringence, a specific numerical value of which was predicted nearly 100 years ago.

 

 

 

UMD Links

• Chemical Physics Program
• Department of Physics
• UMD Homepage

 

Collaborating Institutions

• Centro de Láseres Pulsados
• ELI Beamlines
• Jupiter Laser Facility (Lawrence Livermore National Labs)
• iFAST (University of Central Florida)

 

General Links

• American Physical Society
• American Institute of Physics
• Optical Society of America

Group Lead

Wendell T. Hill

(301) 405 4813

wth@umd.edu

Room B0165 Physical Sciences Complex

Building 415, University of Maryland

College Park, MD 20742

301-314-2012

This work is supported by the National Science Foundation