“Pauli blocking” between fermionic lithium atoms in an optical lattice tagged posts

Single atom resolved fluorescence image of a band insulator of fermionic lithium in an optical lattice. Credit: MPQ, Quantum Many Body Systems Division

Today, quantum optical experiments provide methods to prove the rules math equations. In this regard, scientists in the Quantum Many-Body Division at Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics have made a big step forward.

The “exclusion principle” was formulated by the Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli in 1925 in order to explain the structure and the stability of atoms. Dr. Christian Groß’s team demonstrated the first direct observation of “Pauli blocking”, a consequence of the exclusion principle. To this end, they cooled a cloud of fermionic lithium-6 atoms down to extremely low temperatures and loaded the particles into an optical lattice...