This is a collaborative project between Dr. Roy Glauber, Department of Physics, Harvard University, and Dr. Daniel Walls, Department of Physics, University of Auckland, New Zealand, of a number of theoretical problems that arise in connection with the behavior of slowly moving atoms, and atoms and ions that have been trapped into quantum states of low excitation. Observation of light scattering and of light emission from such atoms offers a systematic way of analyzing the structure, that is to say the position and time correlations, present in atomic systems. They also offer the possibility of analyzing the quantum states of trapped atoms and ions through novel interference effects. Among the problems to be investigated are: the detection of statistical correction effects both of the BoseEinstein and the Fermi-Dirac forms in cooled but free atomic beams. The extension of the same techniques to the treatment of Bose Einstein condensed gases will be undertaken as well as analysis of the Bose condensation more generally for imperfect and trapped gases. A critical examination will be carried out of the nature of the forces exerted on atoms by the quantized radiation fields in order to find corrections to the present semiclassical theory. Present studies to be continued include further attempts to project the design of a device that would produce a beam of neutral bosonic atoms in the form of a steady coherent wave, i.e., an `atom maser`. Analysis of the single-atom laser or `microlaser` developed by a group at Massachusetts Institute of Technology will also continue.
