Dr Micha³ Matuszewski laureate of Prof. Stefan Pienkowski Prize
of III Division of Polish Academy of Sciences
 
 


Dr Micha³ Matuszewski


  Laureate of 2011 Prof. Stefan Pienkowski Prize is Dr Micha³ Matuszewski. in recognition of series of results concerning of creation of spatial structures in Bose-Einstein condensates in presence of spin dependent interactions.

The first observation of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute atomic gases was achieved in 1995, opening a new chapter in atomic and molecular physics and in quantum optics. Spinor condensates, containing atoms with different spin projections on the quantization axis, are characterized by a very rich physics, as exemplified by the presence of ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic phases. The work of Dr. Matuszewski shows that by taking into account the magnetic field of the order of a fraction of Gauss, we can expect several new interesting physical phenomena. It was demonstrated that the antiferromagnetic condensate may, like the ferromagnetic one, be subject to an instability, which leads to the formation of magnetic domains. It was shown that the ground state of antiferromagnetic condensate may be characterized by phase separation even in a homogeneous field. Moreover, the ground state in typical experiments, performed in a harmonic trap, differs significantly from the idealized untrapped case. It was also demonstrated that some states of antiferromagnetic condensates can be characterized by the roton excitation spectrum, known from the theory of superfluid helium.