Mark G. Raizen

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Mark George Raizen is a physicist who conducts experiments on quantum optics and atom optics.

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[edit] Birth and education

Raizen was born in New York City, where generations of his family had resided since the 1840s. He attended The Walden School on the Upper West Side, until his family moved to Israel. He graduated from De Shalit High School and Tel Aviv University in 1980, with an undergraduate degree in mathematics. He continued his graduate education at the University of Texas at Austin, under the guidance of Steven Weinberg (Nobel Prize in Physics, 1979) and Jeff Kimble (California Institute of Technology). Raizen completed his Ph.D. in 1989. From 1989 to 1991, Raizen was a National Research Council (NRC) post-doc at the Time and Frequency Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, working with David Wineland and James Bergquist.

[edit] Academic career

In 1991, Raizen returned to Austin and the University of Texas where he became an assistant professor of physics. He was promoted to associate professor in 1996 and full professor in 2000. Raizen holds the Sid W. Richardson Foundation Regents Chair, one of only four such chairs in the physics department.

[edit] Scientific career

Raizen started his scientific career in theoretical particle physics in 1984 with Steven Weinberg, his mentor. In 1985, Raizen moved into experimental physics where he began a close association with Jeff Kimble. In his graduate work, Raizen was instrumental in one of the first experiments that measured squeezed states of light and also observed for the first time the Vacuum Rabi splitting in the optical domain.

While at NIST, Raizen developed the first linear ion trap which has become the basis for quantum information with trapped ions.

The research program in the Raizen group uses laser cooling and trapping of neutral atoms to study many fundamental problems. One of the most important results was the first direct observation the quantum suppression of chaos.

In other experiments, Raizen and his group investigated quantum transport of atoms in an accelerating optical lattice. They studied the loss mechanism during the acceleration and determined that it is due to quantum tunneling. Surprisingly, for short times they found a deviation from the exponential decay law in the survival probability. This is a manifestation of a basic quantum effect predicted over forty years ago by Leonid Khalfin but not observed until now. This short-time deviation from exponential decay was then used to suppress or enhance the decay rate, effects known as the Quantum Zeno effect or Anti-Zeno effect.

In recent years the focus of the experimental research has shifted towards many-body physics. Towards this goal, Raizen and his group have built up two experiments with Bose-Einstein Condensate in rubidium and sodium. They have developed a unique system for the study and control of quantum statistics of atoms and quantum entanglement. The system includes a condensate in an optical box trap together with single atom detection.

Recently, Raizen pioneered a totally new approach to producing ultra-cold atoms by coherent slowing of supersonic beams. Using an atomic paddle, a slow monochromatic beam of ground state helium was produced. In a different approach, pulsed magnetic fields were used to slow paramagnetic atoms. Together, these methods enable trapping of ultra-cold atoms that span most of the periodic table. This method will be applied to trapping of spin-polarized hydrogen, deuterium, and tritium for purposes of atomic spectroscopy and precision measurement of beta decay. The latter closes a circle that started with Raizen's work in particle physics, combining new approaches in atomic physics to address fundamental questions.

Raizen is married and resides in Austin and San Antonio, Texas.

[edit] Awards and honors

Raizen is also a fellow of American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] External links