Exploring the world of one-dimensional physics
'Bosons' are subatomic particles that obey Bose-Einstein statistics, which determine the statistical distribution of identical bosons over the energy states in thermal equilibrium. Several bosons can occupy the same quantum state. The physics of interacting one-dimensional (1D) systems is very different from those of ordinary three-dimensional (3D) configurations. In a single dimension, particles cannot avoid each other and so behave very peculiarly, even counter-intuitively. Such 1-D interactions can be obtained by loading degenerate atomic gases in optical dipole potentials. The 'Strongly interacting 1D bose gases' (Interact1DBoson) sought to use optical dipole potentials to create strongly correlated degenerate 1-D Bose gases. The project managed to trap a Bose-Einstein condensate of 87Rb in a red detuned two-dimensional (2D) optical lattice. When the two perpendicular optical lattices tightly confine the atoms along their direction of propagation, an array of 1-D systems can be obtained. In fact, the atoms can effectively move only along the direction where no lattice is present. The lattice potential is strong enough that the coupling between the 1-D atomic systems can be completely neglected in the time scale of the experiment and an array of independent 1-D systems is obtained. These results will be useful both in the fields of cold atoms and condensed matter physics, and other researchers can build upon them.