First, trapping. We "boil" barium atoms out of an oven and then knock off one of its valence electrons. Now that the barium atom has become a charged ion, we can push it around using electromagnetic fields. If you push it in a particular way, so can keep the ion in a very small region of space (in a vacuum chamber) for weeks at a time before it wanders out of your reach. And that is what we do to trap it. We prefer to trap it because we like knowing precisely where the ion is all the time, so we can shine our lasers on it, and we don't want the ion talking to any other ions or atoms.

Now, the weak interaction. In nature there are four different forces: gravity, electromagnetism and the strong and weak forces. We know a lot about gravity because we experience it every day in our macroscopic world. We also experience electromagnetism at work every day, too, but you may have not realized that that was what it was called. Think about magnets, electricity, and light, and you're thinking about electromagnetism! The strong and weak forces only occur on the atomic and subatomic scales, so we have no experience with it in every day life. Although it is these forces that hold the insides of atoms together inside our bodies and every where else. In particular I study the weak force in the barium ion using lots of lasers and electronics to figure out what's going on!

I first decided to study physics when I was in ninth grade. I saw a HeNe laser and thought it was the coolest thing ever! I wanted to do something that would involve lasers, and atomic physics is one of those things. Now we see lasers everywhere, so I could have studied something else. But I do enjoy physics and plan to teach it as a career when I finish my degree.

Thanks for setting up this web site!

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