The purpose of this research project is to enhance the understanding of the dynamics and properties of manybody quantum systems by investigating experimentally a mixture of quantum-degenerate bosons and fermions prepared in controlled non-equilibrium (and equilibrium) states. We will develop two complementary methods to characterize the dynamics of the mixture, with a particular focus on the detection of a single one-dimensional Fermi gas: the first method is based on the statistical analysis of the coherence properties of the bosonic part of the mixture, and the second method is based on a probe scheme sensitive at the single-atom level.
The experimental environment will be the atom chip. Atom chips have now become a standard tool for the easy, robust and fast production of Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs), and recently of a three-dimensional degenerate Fermi gas (DFG). In addition, atom chips are well-suited to the study of one-dimensional (1d) systems due to their ability to form elongated magnetic microtraps with high aspect ratios, and can provide a single realization of a 1d quantum system. In particular, they offer an environment where a DFG can be studied in a single 1d system, which would extend the recent few (≤ 10)-fermion experiments reported in to a regime with tens or hundreds of particles.