Since the advent of laser cooling and trapping of atoms, the field of ultracold matter has flourished into a very diverse and active community, involving many laboratories worldwide. In experiments, one can tune and control different parameters at will with a high precision such as the quantum states of the particles, their interactions, or the geometry of the environment, to name a few. Diagnostic tools are also an important part of those experiments where detection of atoms at the single individual level is now possible. These experimental advances, together with more and more sophisticated theoretical developments, enable to probe ultracold matter with an unprecedented degree of precision and knowledge. For example, one can built nowadays very well controlled experimental set-ups that are important for studying quantum simulation, many-body physics, quantum phase transition or processes for quantum information.
Following the same developments that were made for ultracold atoms, one can produce nowadays ultracold molecules from different techniques such as direct cooling or association of already cold atoms. Molecules can possess a permanent electric dipole moment. Applying an electric field gives rise to strong, long-range and anisotropic dipole-dipole interactions between the molecules which can be engineered at will. Since 2008 and the pioneering experiments of ultracold molecules formation in their ground electronic, vibrational and rotational state, the field of ultracold molecules has evolved rapidly and kept growing. Within the past ten years, many experimental and theoretical achievements have been realized:
- control of molecular interactions and collisions in electric fields, in optical lattices
- long coherence lifetimes of molecules
- lattice spin model with dipolar molecules
- state-to-state chemistry
- direct laser cooling of molecules
- Sisyphus cooling of polyatomic molecules
- formation of single molecules from two atoms in optical tweezers
- shielding molecules with fields and waves and evaporative cooling
- creation of degenerate Fermi gases of dipolar molecules
- study of tetramer complexes ...
Similarly to ultracold atoms, ultracold molecules are commonly seen as ideal candidates to study quantum simulation and many-body physics in optical lattices, processes for quantum information, to perform high-precision measurements of many physical quantities, besides the study of ultracold chemical molecular reactions.
Understanding the research area of ultracold matter therefore requires knowledge in quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, many-body physics, atomic, molecular and optical physics, and this is what the training school aims at bringing.
