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Atomic and Optical Physics

This course provides the foundations for contemporary research in selected areas of atomic and optical physics, including the quantum-mechanical behavior of atoms and photons, and how these properties may relate to quantum information processing.

Atomic and Optical Physics

This course provides the foundations for contemporary research in selected areas of atomic and optical physics, including the quantum-mechanical behavior of atoms and photons, and how these properties may relate to quantum information processing.

This is the first of a two-semester subject sequence that provides the foundations for contemporary research in selected areas of atomic and optical physics, including the quantum-mechanical behavior of atoms and photons, and how these properties may relate to quantum information processing.

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Topics covered include the interaction of radiation with atoms: resonance; absorption, stimulated and spontaneous emission; methods of resonance, dressed atom formalism, masers and lasers, cavity quantum electrodynamics; structure of simple atoms, behavior in very strong fields; fundamental tests: time reversal, parity violations, Bell’s inequalities; and experimental methods.

What you'll learn

  • How atoms interact with radiation
  • The concept and methods of resonance
  • The structure of simple atoms
  • The behavior of atoms in cavities
  • Simple quantum information concepts arising in atomic physics

Prerequisites

Undergraduate physics, including quantum mechanics, calculus, and linear algebra

Meet your instructors

  • Featured image for Wolfgang Ketterle
    John D. MacArthur Professor of Physics at MIT
  • Featured image for Isaac Chuang
    Professor of Physics and Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
  • Featured image for David E. Pritchard
    Principal Investigator in the Research Laboratory of Electronics

Who can take this course?

Because of U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) restrictions and other U.S. federal regulations, learners residing in one or more of the following countries or regions will not be able to register for this course: Iran, Cuba, Syria, North Korea and the Crimea, Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic regions of Ukraine.