* Work performed together with J. Korsbakken, J. DuBois at the University of California, Berkeley and with I. Cirac at the Max-Planck Institute for Quantum Optics, Garching, Germany.
The concept of a "particle in a box" is also widely used in thermodynamics. The historic paradox of Maxwell's demon suggested a way to cause particles to accumulate in one side of the box, in an apparent violation of the Second Law. Motivated by these ideas we have developed a method to form an optical "one-way" barrier for atoms. This device would allow atoms coming from one side of the barrier to pass through, but those coming from the other side to be reflected. I will show how this idea can be used for phase space compression and cooling, as an optical realization of Maxwell's demon.
Contact:
Victor Gurarie (Victor.Gurarie@colorado.edu)