On the way back to #EstesPark, we encountered new wildlife species! A few bighorn sheep (the logo animal of #CSU) were calmly standing next to the road.
When we went ahead to the cottage where we will spent our well-deserved holidays, a few #elk were already waiting for us of course!
#ICOLS2023

Finally, last day of #ICOLS2023 !
We had the pleasure of listening to a very entertaining talk by #EricCornell about the new particles ("unicorns") we might be able to find by exploring the electron electric dipole moment with highly precise measurements (Also, his slides today are almost as good as the one showed previously from 1995). The other speakers also showed impressive measurements of fundamental constants.

We also took a photo of all conference attendees today, which will be really important for bragging once one of them wins a #NobelPrize (of course apart from the guy standing almost next to me who already has one 😁)!
The picture is online on the #ICOLS2023 website already (but in bad resolution): https://jila.colorado.edu/icols2023/sites/default/files/uploads/Group%20June%2029_1.jpg

We also had some time to explore #EstesPark downtown a bit - which is basically just a street full of souvenir shops with a lot of #Colorado T-shirts and moose, elk and bears in all different shapes XD
Of course we also saw another #elk - on a parking lot with elk-approved WiFi.
#ICOLS2023

I used today's poster session to inform everyone about the papers we have written which would really help them understand their experiments better :D And I noticed that after more than 6 years of working on an experiment, I might get a bit sarcastic when young PhD students tell me what they want to achieve in the next few years. I wished them good luck in the end :'D
#ICOLS2023

Day 4 of #ICOLS2023 !
Today we heard a lot of about the different applications of highly precise #AtomicClocks (and #MolecularClocks) - for detecting height differences via the gravitational redshift, for testing the fundamental principles of #GeneralRelativity or for detecting/excluding #DarkMatter candidates!
There were also very nice theory contributions explaining the ideas for new #physics and showing us what we could see if only our experiments measured at a higher precision!

The day ended with a very nice conference dinner - and with talks by #JohnHall and #EricCornell who summarized the history of the #ICOLS conference within the last 60 years or so - basically talking about #laser #spectroscopy since the invention of the laser!
Both speakers made it very clear that a) you cannot do what they did without the strong support of a partner and b) that they probably should have spent more time with their families and less time in the lab/at conferences.
#ICOLS2023

We also stopped counting #elk encounters today - already saw an entire family having breakfast on the lawn in front of our rooms in the morning, then later two specimens clearly ignoring the rules and having a bath - and later the entire group joined in! There were also many on the steep and high parts of the mountain we crossed on our excursion.
#ICOLS2023

The excursion took us up to an elevation of 12,000 feet (3658 m) to the Alpine Vistor center in the #RockyMountains national park! The high elevation was quite noticable after a very short climb from the parking lot.
We unfortunately didn't have a lot of time up there, but the view above the tree line (with quite some residual snow) was amazing!
#ICOLS2023

Day 3 of #ICOLS2023 !
Just a few talks today, as we went for an excursion after lunch. But still very interesting and relevant topics: #quantum #entanglement in #AtomInterferometry, a quantum system to emulate the complicated physics of glass, some more steps towards #QuantumComputing and an overview of miniaturized lasers for our experiments - trying to get rid of tables full of optical elements and lasers!

Day 2 of #ICOLS2023 !
The topics of the talks today ranged from X-ray #spectroscopy to different applications and ideas around #UltracoldMolecules - including some deep dives into chemistry!
The talk program finished with our professor's introduction to #AtomInterferometry and an overview of what you can do with it - on earth and in space (basically everything!).
Then we had a really nice poster sessions with many fruitful discussions (I mainly quizzed the atom interferometry people).

Although we left the poster session only 1 hour after it was supposed to end, there was still time for a short hiking trip around the beautiful #LakeEstes in #EstesPark !
Lead by a fearless Canadian, we also travelled through the "aggressive elk" zone, but fortunately only saw a not very aggressive elk with her little offspring (only mother elk is in the photo) 🥰
#ICOLS2023

Day 1 of #ICOLS2023 !
We heard some very exciting invited talks about the latest developments in testing fundamental physics with #quantum systems and using arrays of cold molecules or atoms for quantum computation and simulation.
Then there was the poster session where I presented the latest updates on our #VLBAI #AtomInterferometry apparatus and preliminary results of my matter-wave lensing experiments with rubidium.
There were so many interesting and exciting discussions!

It's conference time again!
Woke up way too early today to take the train to Frankfurt airport - but at least the sun is already shining!

I'll try to keep up this thread to report about the journey and the conference!
#ICOLS2023