Cosmology with Ultracold Atoms (Mark Fromhold & Lucia Hackermuller)

Mark Fromhold and Lucia Hackermuller tell us about how they are 3D printing atom traps that allow them to cool atoms to a few micro Kelvin. This is super interesting for cosmology because it would allow them, among many other things, to potentially trap dark domain walls. We learned in another recent cosmology talk about the physics behind these dark domain walls, now here is the physics behind the cold atom trap.
In principle these traps may one day measure the gravitational effects of quantum objects, ultimately testing whether space-time curvature can be in a quantum superposition or not.
This was the first Cosmology Talk publication to be delayed due to a patent application!
Lucia: www.nottingham.ac.uk/physics/...
Mark: www.nottingham.ac.uk/physics/...
Dark Domain Walls: arxiv.org/abs/2308.01179

[@talks_curator728]

*Index to Key Parts of the Talk*
[00:00] Shaun's intro
[01:04] Opening remarks by Lucia and Mark
[04:47] Timing & enabling investments in Quantum 2.0 technologies
[09:18] How are atoms cooled to

[@modqft5]

I wrote a PhD on the theoretical physics of ultracold atoms. It seemed to me that this topic was very far from cosmology and I switched to particle physics.

[@CosmologyTalks]

At a fundamental level cold atoms and cosmology are certainly far apart, but cold atoms can create such extreme situations that they can be used to test new fundamental physics laws/particles that wouldn't show up anywhere else. For example the stuff discussed in the video, where a domain wall in a dark matter field could get trapped in a cold atom lab.