Date of Award

8-2016

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Physics & Astronomy

First Advisor

Chris H. Greene

Committee Chair

Chris H. Greene

Committee Member 1

Erica Carlson

Committee Member 2

Yong P. Chen

Committee Member 3

Francis Robicheaux

Abstract

Two-body scattering constitutes one of the most fundamental processes in various physical systems ranging from ultracold dilute quantum gases to energetic quark- gluon plasmas. In this dissertation, we study the low-energy atomic collision physics in the presence of synthetic gauge fields, which are generated by atom-light interaction. One category of synthetic gauge fields is the artificial spin-orbit coupling. We discuss three different aspects in scattering theory: ultracold collision, scattering resonance, and bound state formation from a few-body perspective when the atomic spin states are coupled with their center-of-mass motion. The understanding of the spin-orbit effects on the modification of the scattering processes not only builds the foundation of collision physics in the presence of non-abelian gauge fields but also paves the way towards unraveling the few-body correlations in many-body systems.

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