Dr Jun-Yi Zhang has recently been appointed Research Associate, Atomic and Molecular Physics with the School of Engineering and Logistics at Charles Darwin University.
Dr Jun-Yi has previously worked at the Centre for Astrophysics at Harvard University.
His work has focused on ultra-accurate calculation of long-range interactions between helium and alkaline-earth atoms - ‘ultra’ referring to the extremely complicated combined analytic and numerical work that is also used for tests of quantum electrodynamics and fundamental constants.
The long range van der Waals interactions are crucially needed to decipher a menagerie of collisional data in the ultracold region (less than one microkelvin) and the stability of ultracold gases and Bose-Einstein condensation. To this end, Jun-Yin's calculations are timely for the interpretation of results from metastable helium gases and alkaline-earth optical clocks.
These common frequency standards are based on the application of frequency-comb-methods for which this years Nobel Prize was given - to the calcium and strontium atoms. Only scant collisional information is available in the cold and ultracold regimes for these atoms.
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