Wilhelm und Else Heraeus Seminar #702: Otto Stern's Molecular Beam Research and its Impact on Science

1 Sept 2019, 10:00 → 5 Sept 2019, 18:30 Europe/Berlin

Frankfurt

Dudley Herschbach, Peter Toennies, Horst Schmidt-Böcking, Bretislav Friedrich

In 1919, at Frankfurt, Otto Stern (1888-1969) implemented the molecular beam -- or molecular ray -- technique, which he characterized as follows: "the most distinctive characteristic property of the molecular ray method is its simplicity and directness. It enables us to make measurements on isolated neutral atoms or molecules with macroscopic tools. For this reason it is especially valuable for testing and demonstrating directly fundamental assumptions of the theory." Of special significance was the Stern-Gerlach experiment, carried out at Frankfurt in 1920-1922, which introduced the key concept of sorting quantum states via space quantization of angular momentum. Among its descendants are the prototypes for nuclear magnetic resonance, optical pumping, the laser, and atomic clocks, as well as incisive discoveries such as the Lamb shift and the anomalous increment in the magnetic moment of the electron, which launched quantum electrodynamics. In the 1960s, the molecular beam technique made inroads into chemistry as well, by fulfilling the pipe dream of disentangling from gaseous chaos elementary chemical reactions as single binary collisions of chemically well-defined reagents. Chemical reaction dynamics that ensued has remained one of the chief preoccupations of chemical/molecular physics to date. In the 1990s, a renaissance had begun in atomic physics, nurtured by the development of techniques to cool and trap atoms. Based on a combination of molecular beams with laser cooling, these techniques enabled the realization of quantum degeneracy in atomic gases, launched condensed-matter physics with tunable interactions, as well as transformed metronomy.

The Otto Stern symposium will survey both the historical aspects as well as the state of the art of what emerged from Otto Stern’s molecular beam laboratory at Frankfurt. The Physics Department at Frankfurt has been recently recognised by the European Physical Society (EPS) as an “EPS Historic Site,” which will be inaugurated during the symposium.

The symposium is funded by grants from the Wilhelm and Else Heraeus Foundation https://www.we-heraeus-stiftung.de/english/, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft https://www.dfg.de/, and Frontiers Media https://www.frontiersin.org/.

Annalen der Physik-2011-Toennies-Schmidt-Boecking-Friedrich-Lower.pdf

Booklet-Otto Stern Fest.pdf

Frontiers2019_Otto Stern Fest.pdf

Physics Today-2003-Friedrich-Herschbach-SGE.pdf

Sunday, 1 September

1 Welcome Reception

Monday, 2 September

2 Welcome: An homage to Otto Stern

Speaker: Prof. Dudley Herschbach (Harvard University)

3 My uncle Otto Stern

Speaker: Mr Alan Tempelton (Berkeley)

10:00 Coffee Break

History: Prof. Karin Reich, Chair

4 Keynote: Otto Stern’s trajectory

Speaker: Prof. Tilman Sauer (Universität Mainz)

5 From theory to experiment (and back to theory)? On Otto Stern, Max Born and other physicists in the 1920s

Speaker: Prof. Arne Schirrmacher (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin)

6 Otto Sackur, Otto Stern, and the Beginning of the Quantum Theory of Gases

Speaker: Prof. Massimiliano Badino (Universita di Verona)

13:00 Lunch

Magnetic and Electric Resonance Spectroscopy: Horst Kessler, Chair

7 Keynote: From Stern’s beam experiments to modern biomolecular NMR spectroscopy

Speaker: Prof. Christian Griesinger

8 Economic aspects of NMR: Analytic devices and medical imagers

Speaker: Dr Hermann Rquardt

9 Protons, Electrons - how they spin and interact to discover major aspects of Chemistry and Biomedicine

Speaker: Prof. Harald Schwalbe (Universität Frankfurt)

15:45 Coffee Break

Foundations of Quantum Mechanics: Wolfgang Demtröder, Chair

10 Keynote: Quantum or classical perception: The Imaging Theorem and the Ensemble Picture

Speaker: Prof. John Briggs (Universität Freiburg)

11 Reduction of the atomic wave function in the Stern-Gerlach magnetic field

Speaker: Dr Michael Devereux (Los Alamos)

12 At the interface of gravity and quantum mechanics

Speaker: Prof. Wolfgang Schleich (Universität Ulm)

13 Stern-Gerlach Interferometry on the Atom Chip

Speaker: Prof. Ron Folman (Ben Gurion University)

14 Prospects for testing quantum mechanics with levitated optomechanics

Speaker: Prof. Hendrik Ulbricht (University of Southhampton)

19:00 Dinner

Foundations of Quantum Mechanics Con't: Hartmut Hotop, Chair

15 What do Qunatum Measurements Measure?

Speaker: Prof. Bob Griffith (Carnegie-Mellon University)

16 Poster Session with Wine+Beer+Bretzel

Tuesday, 3 September

High Precision Measurements: Peter Toschek, Chair

17 Keynote: Precision experiments for the revised SI - and the future of time

Speaker: Prof. Joachim Ullrich (Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt)

18 Precision Physics in Penning Traps Using the Continuous Stern-Gerlach-Effect

Speaker: Prof. Klaus Blaum (MPI für Kernforschung Heidelberg)

10:30 Coffee Break

Femto-­‐ and Atto-­‐science: Reinhard Dörner, Chair

19 Keynote: Using light to control electrons that, in turn, create new light sources

Speaker: Prof. Paul Corkum (Univesity of Ottawa)

20 Synthetic Chiral Light for Efficient Chiral Light-Matter Interaction

Speaker: Prof. Olga Smirnova (Max-Born-Institut Berlin)

21 Ultrafast molecular and electronic dynamics probed by free-electron lasers

Speaker: Prof. Kiyoshi Ueda (Tohoku University)

22 Attoclock revisited

Speaker: Prof. Ursula Keller (ETH Zürich)

13:00 Lunch

European Physical Society Historic Site Ceremony

23 Remarks

Speaker: Prof. Dieter Meschede (Universität Bonn; President der DPG)

24 Remarks

Speaker: Prof. Petra Rudolf (University of Groningen; Presidet of the EPS)

25 Reamrks

Speaker: Mr Peter Feldmann (Oberbürgermeister der Stadt Frankfurt am Main)

26 Remarks

Speaker: Prof. Birgitta Wolf (Präsidentin der Goethe-Universität Franfurt)

27 Remarks

Speaker: Prof. Wolfgang Grünbein (Präsident Physikalischer Verein Frankfurt)

28 Remarks

Speaker: Prof. Andreas Mulch (Universität Frankfurt; Direktor of the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt)

29 Keynote: Frankfurt Physicists

Speaker: Dr Michael Eckert (Forschungsinstitut, Deutsches Museum)

16:00 Coffee Break

Cold atoms and molecules: Reinhold Schuch, Chair

30 Keynote: Our Patrimony from Otto Stern and My Memories of Otto Frisch

Speaker: Prof. Dan Kleppner (MIT)

31 Ultracold Chemical reactions with molecules in slow motion

Speaker: Prof. Kang-Kuen Ni (Harvard University)

32 Choreographing Quantum Spin Dynamics with Light

Speaker: Prof. Monika Schleier-Smith (Stanford University)

33 STIRAP: Notes about its history and some news

Speaker: Prof. Klaas Bergmann (Technische Universität Kaiserslautern)

Conference Dinner

34 Physical Amusements

Speaker: Prof. Ludger Wöste (Freie Universität Berlin)

Wednesday, 4 September

Reaction Dynamics: Dudley Herschbach, Chair

35 Keynote: Manipulation and control of molecular beams

Speaker: Prof. Gerard Meijer (Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Berlin)

36 Time delays in photoionization

Speaker: Prof. Eva Lindroth (Stockholm University)

37 Quantum effects in cold and controlled molecular dynamics

Speaker: Prof. Christiane Koch (Universität Kassel)

10:30 Coffee Break

Matter-­‐waves: Burkhard Fricke, Chair

38 Keynote: Otto Stern and Wave-Particle Duality

Speaker: Prof. Peter Toennies (MPI für Dynamik und Selbstorganisation)

39 Macromolecular Matter Wave Interferometry and Talbot-Lau Deflectometry

Speaker: Prof. Markus Arndt (Universität Wien)

40 Grating Diffraction of Molecular Beams: Present Day Implementations of Otto Stern’s Concept

Speaker: Dr Wieland Schöllkopf (Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Berlin)

41 Rotating rotationless: nonadiabatic alignment of the helium dimer and trimer

Speaker: Dr Maksim Kunitski (Universität Frankfurt)

13:00 Lunch

MOTs and Optical Lattices: Hanns-Christoph Nägerl, Chair

42 Keynote: Magneto-Optical Trap: Origins and Applications

Speaker: Prof. David Pritchard (MIT)

43 Interaction effects in ultra cold atom systems

Speaker: Prof. Dörte Blume (Washington State University)

44 Engineering spin squeezing in a 3D optical lattice with interacting spin-orbit-coupled fermions

Speaker: Prof. Ana Maria Rey (NIST Boulder)

45 Laser cooling and magneto-optical trapping of molecules

Speaker: Dr Mike Tarbutt (Imperial College London)

16:00 Coffee Break

Exotic beams: Udo Strohbusch, Chair

46 Keynote: Microdroplet Chemistry

Speaker: Prof. Richard Zare (Stanford University)

47 Liquid micro jet studies of the free vacuum surface of water and of chemical solutions by soft X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy

Speaker: Dr Manfred Faubel (MPI für Dynamik und Selbstorganisation)

48 From Liquid Rays to Gas Rays: The Non-Maxwellian Evaporation of Helium from Water Microjets

Speaker: Prof. Gil Nathanson (University of Wisconsin at Madison)

49 Laser-induced rotation and alignment of molecules in helium nanodroplets

Speaker: Prof. Henrik Stapelfeldt (University of Aarhus)

50 Far-from-equilibrium dynamics of molecules in helium nanodroplets

Speaker: Prof. Mikhail Lemeshko (IST Austria)

19:00 Dinner

Otto Stern's relatinships with Pauli and Gerlach: Bretislav Friedrich, Chair

51 Stern’s friendship with Pauli

Speaker: Dr Karl von Meyen (Universität Ulm)

52 Stern’s relation to Gerlach

Speaker: Prof. Horst Schmidt-Böcking (Universität Frankfurt)

53 Poster Session with Wine+Beer+Bretzel

Thursday, 5 September

Post-Conference Program: Boat Ride on the Rhine

08:30 Bus from Frankfurt to Geisenheim am Rhein

10:00 Boat ride on the Rhein from Geisenheim to Braubach and back; Lunch on Boat

17:30 Bus from Geisenheim to Frankfurt