Prof. Silke Ospelkaus awarded Valuable European Research Prize

The European Research Council supports the investigation of ultracold molecules with
1.26 million Euros

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded one of the coveted ERC Starting Grants to a researcher at Leibniz Universität Hannover. Prof. Silke Ospelkaus, full professor of experimental physics at the Institute of Quantum Optics and the Cluster of Excellence QUEST (Centre for Quantum Engineering and Space-Time Research), can look forward to a grant of 1.26 million Euros for the next five years. The funded project “Polar Molecules - From ultracold chemistry to novel quantum phases” is concerned with the development of techniques for the quantum control of ultracold molecular matter systems. With the ERC Starting Grants, the European Research Council supports excellent young scientists in conducting novel and innovative research projects.

Ultracold polar molecules – with a temperature close to the absolute zero - provide a wealth of new opportunities for the control of chemical reactions and the quantum simulation of interacting matter systems. “With our experiments we aim to develop completely new scientific approaches and to answer fundamental questions in many-particle physics at the quantum level,” explains Prof. Silke Ospelkaus. In the ultracold atomic quantum gases that have been investigated so far, the atoms in the system act like perfectly round objects when they collide. With molecular quantum gases, on the other hand, an anisotropic interaction can be observed. The molecules then interact like oval objects, similar to American footballs. “This allows us to create and study entirely new quantum many-particle systems,” says Ospelkaus.

Prof. Dr. Silke Ospelkaus studied physics at Bonn University and took her doctorate on the control and application of atomic quantum many-particle systems at Hamburg University in 2006. In 2007 she received the doctoral award of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft (German Physical Society), section Atoms, Molecules, Quantum Optics and Plasmas. From 2007 to 2009 she worked as a Feodor Lynen scholar of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at the institute JILA in Boulder, USA. From 2009 to 2010 she was the head of the research group “Ultracold Polar Molecules” at the Max-Planck-Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, before becoming a full professor of experimental physics at the Institute of Quantum Optics, Leibniz Universität Hannover, in November 2010.

The selection criteria for awarding an ERC Starting Grant are the researcher’s scientific excellence and the innovative potential of the research idea. In this way, the ERC supports the foundation of excellent new research teams. This year, more than 2,800 scientists from 21 European countries and from all areas of research applied for funding from the ERC’s 580 million Euro budget.


For further information on QUEST see
www.quest.uni-hannover.de

The Cluster of Excellence QUEST (Centre for Quantum Engineering and Space- Time Research is) is funded since November 2007 under the Excellence Initiative of the German federal and state government. The cluster main areas of research are quantum engineering and space-time research. Among six institutes at Leibniz Universität Hannover, QUEST’s partner institutions are the Laser Zentrum Hannover e.V. (LZH), the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute) with the gravitational wave detector GEO600, the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt Braunschweig and the Centre of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM) at the University of Bremen.

Notes for Editors

For further information, please contact Prof. Silke Ospelkaus, phone: +49 511-17645; E-mail silke.ospelkaus@iqo.uni-hannover.de or Dr. Ude Cieluch (QUEST communication and public relations), phone +49 511 762-17481; E-mail ude.cieluch@quest.uni-hannover.de, who will be pleased to assist.

Presseinformation vom 11.02.2011