The development of optical lattice emulators is among the most ambitious projects ever conducted in atomic physics research. The goal is to use cold atoms in optical lattices to simulate important lattice models in condensed matter physics whose solutions remain unknown so far. In the last few years, there have many significant advances in this effort including "quantum simulations" of the bosonic and fermionic Hubbard models and imaging of atoms in optical lattices. The recent success in producing synthetic gauge fields heralds a new generation of cold atom experiments to study spin-orbit effects for bosons and fermions including all those in solids. In addition, recent successes in cooling rare earth atoms and dipolar molecules to quantum degeneracy provide new classes of systems with extraordinary high symmetry (like SU(N)) systems, as well as with long range interaction. Theoretical studies of cold atoms in optical lattices have also continued to blossom in the last few years. There is an increasing number of studies of new phases in optical lattices. At the same time, numerical techniques have risen to a new height to tackle many optical lattice problems. This flurry of excitement in both theory and experiment is a reflection of the great ambitions of the field: to realize the most novel systems in condensed matter and to create new forms of quantum matter difficult to achieve in solids; to explore new mechanisms for strong interaction and strong correlation (hence superfluids with high Tc/TF) ratio; to realize and to manipulate topologically protected excitations; to manufacture, and to find applications of highly entangled quantum states. This workshop aims to bring together theoreticians and experimentalists to push forward the frontier of this exciting field.

deadline for applications: January 30

We would encourage you to apply via http://aspenphys.org/physicists/summer/program/index.html