Dr Andrew Truscot
Atomic and Molecular Physics Laboratories

The idea of single particle interference is ubiquitous throughout quantum theory. However, in 1956, when Robert Hanbury Brown and Richard Twiss proposed the use of two particle quantum interference (two body correlations) as a method of measuring the angular size of stars their ideas were met with scepticism. It took almost a decade, before the seminal work of Glauber showed that multiparticle interference was allowed within the framework of quantum theory, and furthermore that the most fundamental property of a quantum field, its coherence, is defined by analysing many body correlation functions. In this talk I will explain our recent experiments in which we have used higher order correlation functions (many particle interference) to probe the properties of ultracold/degenerate atom clouds.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Dr Andrew Truscott did his PhD at the University of Queensland and Stanford University investigated the quantum chaotic dynamics of ultracold atoms in modulated potentials. As a postdoctoral fellow he worked at Rice University (Texas) where he was involved in the production of the first quantum degenerate mixture of bosons and fermions. He now leads his own experimental group at RSPE in the Atomic and Molecular Physics Laboratories, and uses the unique properties of an excited state Bose-Einstein condensate to probe the quantum world.