| title: | Novel Coherent States of Matter around the Quantum Critical Points in Quantum Magnets |
|---|---|
| reg no: | ETF6852 |
| project type: | Estonian Science Foundation research grant |
| subject: |
1.3. Physics |
| status: | accepted |
| institution: | Institute of Chemical Physics and Biophysics |
| head of project: | Raivo Stern |
| duration: | 01.01.2006 - 31.12.2009 |
| description: | New (coherent) states of matter in quantum magnets are (for example) states produced artificially by placing gapped non-magnetic materials (with the necessary ingredients) in a sufficiently strong external magnetic field. When this is done it is possible to change the non-magnetic ground state of the system into a magnetic ground state that consists of bosonic states (spin = 1, no electrical charge) that move throughout the lattice like particles. The chemical potential and concentration of these charge-less and mass-less particles in the lattice, is solely and reversibly controlled by the external magnetic field. The balance between the repulsive interaction and kinetic energy of the particles, together with the lattice geometry, determine whether the system forms a solid (crystallizes) or not upon cooling. When the spin system does not crystallize it is susceptible to superfluid-condensation, as in the case of supercooled low-density atom gases predicted by Bose and Einstein eighty years ago. We propose to create, control and characterize new coherent states of matter in quantum spin systems (quantum magnets) making use of existing materials synthesis capabilities (both through intensive international collaborations and the new and improved ones at NICPB), and the unique experimental tools provided by the NICPB in Tallinn, NHMFL at Tallahassee, GHMFL in Grenoble, LANL in Los Alamos, and others. In addition to this we will use the most sophisticated analytical techniques and numerical algorithms for solving quantum spin magnet problems developed during the last couple of years at our collaborators (LANL, University of Ljubljana) and perspectively adopted in process of our project for use in Estonia. Compared to ultra cold atom gases or even excitons or polaritons, the relatively high temperatures and easy-to-achieve experimental conditions at which tripleton condensation is expected make them much more accessible to modern observation and characterization techniques. The new techniques will enable exploration of potential use of a coherent spin state involving thousands of spins in quantum computation-related experiments. Current proposal is intended to serve as backbone for Estonian participation in the EU COST P-16 program from Emergent Behaviour in Correlated Matter (ECOM) 2005-2008 and in the á la carte program from European Science Foundation Highly Frustrated Magnetism (HFM) (May 2005 - May 2010). |
| project group | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| no | name | institution | position | |
| 1. | Enno Joon | |||
| 2. | Aavo Sirk | |||
| 3. | Raivo Stern | Keemilise ja Bioloogilise Füüsika Instituut | ||
| 4. | Sirje Vija | |||