Austen Lamacraft

As one approaches the absolute zero of temperature, quantum mechanics confounds our expectation that all motion should come to a halt. Such a situation would contradict the uncertainty principle: if particles became localized at one point in space, their momentum (and hence kinetic energy) would become huge. If the interactions between particles are large enough this localization can happen, and the result is a frozen solid all the way down to zero temperature (as happens to the atoms in ordinary table salt, for example).

Under certain conditions -- if we deal with very light atoms or the electrons that are free to move inside a metal, for example -- quantum effects are so strong that the particles never freeze. The result is a quantum liquid, a catch-all term for a range of systems whose physical properties defy classical expectations, and includes the normal and superconducting states of electrons in ordinary metals, as well as the superfluid phases of liquids Helium.

For many years these were the only quantum liquids that could be studied in the laboratories of low-temperature physics, but the last decade has seen extraordinary experimental advances in the creation of quantum degenerate gases of bosonic and fermionic atoms. The majority of Professor Lamacraft’s present research efforts have been a response to this remarkable progress. His recent work has explored the phase diagram of polarized Fermi condensates, and dynamical phenomena in magnetic Bose gases.

Austen Lamacraft, “Quantum quenches in a spinor condensate”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 160404 (2007)

M. M. Parish, F. M. Marchetti, A. Lamacraft, and B. D. Simons, “Finite temperature phase diagram of a polarised fermi condensate”, Nature Physics 3, 124 (2007)

P. W. Brouwer, A. Lamacraft, and K. Flensberg, “Nonequilibrium theory of coulomb blockade in open quantum dots”, Phys. Rev. B 72, 075316 (2005)

A. Lamacraft and B. D. Simons, “Tail states in a superconductor with magnetic impurities”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 4783 (2000)