TORYD, the ERC Consolidator Grant awarded to Jérôme Beugnon
Jérôme Beugnon, researcher in our team Bose-Einstein condensates, has been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant 2019 for his project TOpological many-body states with ultracold RYDberg atoms, or in short TORYD.
This project aims at studying experimentally the dynamics of quantum gases of bosons in controlled geometries with a specific focus on the regime of strong interactions between particles. In this regime, it will be possible to achieve exotic phases of matter in which, for instance, new transport properties for particles and heat are expected. Moreover, with a suitable topological configuration, new quantum phases are also expected.
The chosen approach consists in exciting optically the atoms to a Rydberg state so as to take advantage of the dipole-dipole interaction between atoms and reach the strongly interacting regime. This approach will be developed on an existing platform where custom-shaped clouds of atoms in two dimensions of space can be tailored.