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Manipulation of ultracold Bose gases in a time-averaged orbiting potential
Cleary, P.W.
Publication date
2012
Link to publication
Citation for published version (APA):
Cleary, P. W. (2012). Manipulation of ultracold Bose gases in a time-averaged orbiting
potential.
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Acknowledgements
When you spend close to a decade at a task and you start a little unsuited to it, then you end up with a lot of people to thank. To begin I must speak of my pro-moter Prof. Jook Walraven. Jook took a bit of a gamble handing over control of a complex experiment to an algebraist with limited experience of (or ahem, affinity for) apparatus. After a couple of false starts, we managed to find a good working rhythm together, resulting in (amongst other things) a design for a laser amplifier and eventually a rather well-written paper to be proud of. Along the way I learned so much of a scientific and social nature from Jook that I emerged as a fully-formed engineer. It looks like I will be last of a long and illustrious line of PhD students who have Jook as their promotor and I would like to say a sincere thank you from us all. Absolutely essential to reaching a successful end was the always helpful prodding of the unique Tom Hijmans. Tom got involved in this project just as I obtained control over the experiment, but at a stage when any meaningful results seemed intangibly far away. After some months of fruitless searching for cloud-holes, it was Tom who steered us in the direction of the phase of the TOP trap and provided essential theoretical support as well as invaluable labtime for the main results of this thesis. Sincerest thanks Tom also for giving me gainful employment at the praktikum - it was always a pleasure to work with you.
But of course there were others, so many others. In the beginning, at Amolf on the Kruislaan, there were 3 predecessors; Kai, Igor and Christian who left behind an impressively complicated apparatus and a treasure trove of labbooks. For 6 months I worked on laser modules next to the main lab with the help of Idsard Attema, Henk Dekker, Ton Vijftigschild, Wim Brouwer, Henk Sodenkamp, Ilia Cerjak and the all-round brilliance of Hinco Schoenmaker. Meanwhile a wonderful control system was built by Duncan Verhijde and Hans Alberda which proved to be more than I ever could have wished for to run the experiments. In that first year I was spoiled for choice with two great postdocs Wolf van Klitsing and Jeremie Leonard at my disposal until both got better offers and were off to pastures new. I missed you guys in later years! In the summer of 2004, my life got turned upside down and as the summer closed I was a father, a husband and working with a heap of boxes in the cellar at the Valckenierstraat. Luckily I had some great new neighbors on their way there with the always helpful Steve, the knowledgeable Sebastian, “sporty” Tobias (climbing, rugby, baseball), and the simply wonderful Antje (world’s greatest paranimf!) in the
110 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS lab next door and Carolijn and eventually Richard across the corridor. I also had a number of masters students who helped me in the lab especially Maarten, Guillaume and Nicolas whom I would also like to thank. Apart from these neighbours, the WZI on Valckenierstraat had a host of other characters with whom you could talk physics, politics or football. I think in particular of the trio of theoreticians Carlos, Micha and Piotr who worked with Gora Shlyapnikov; the BEC on a chip group of Aaldert, Jan-Joris, Shannon and the inspirational Philipp Wicke under the guidance of Klaasjan (adept at a good pep-talk when it was most needed) and the permanent magnets group of Ben, Robert, Iuliana, our babysitter Vlad, Atreju, Vanessa and Rene. Together we made up the quantum gases group and had frequent colloquia with our cousins from the VU as well as a very productive literature club which introduced me to the ideas in this thesis. There was also an institute full of physicists of other disciplines experimental and theoretical on Valckenierstraat and a great boss in Mark Golden.
There was also a whole new support crew at the UvA for me to bother with all my electrical, mechanical, vacuum, design and administration problems. And I had enough to go around so thanks go to Theo van Lieshout, Hans Agema, Herman Prins, Pieter Sannes, Johan te Winkel for their time and help with all kinds of electrical issues, to Edwin Baay, Frans Pinkse, Alof Wassink, Ed de Water for their electrical circuit designs, Hans Gerritsen, Gerrit Hardeman, Ben Harrison and Taco Walstra for their computerized expertize, to Cees van den Biggelaar, Harry Beukers, Wim van Aartsen, Fred van Anrooij, Wietse Buster, Tjerk van Goudoever, Jan Kalwij, Farah Kuckulus, Diederick Kwakkestijn, Ben Klein-Meulekamp, Henk Luijten (the master of PEEK), Joost Overtoom (provider of beer and precision work), Jur Pluim, Johan Soede, Daan de Zwarte for all their help with mechanical parts of the experiment and to Ron Manuputy and his team Mattijs Bakker, Hans Ellermeijer, Eric Hennes for their design capabilities, to that man Bert Zwart for his procurement, supplies and vacuum knowledge and finally to Rita Vinig, Ineke Baas, Luuk Lusink, Joost van Marmeren and Meike Scholten for their help with my admin issues. Guys, thanks to you all I finally made it!
Looking back to the road which took me here, I’d like to thank my parents for giving me the freedom to choose my own path and for being there when I needed them and also my sisters Sandra and Orla and extended family for teasing me for being an eternal student and my brother Adrian for having the patience to put up with me. I also want to mention my friends from home Brian, Consey, John Flynn, Shane, Jamie and David for the great way that we can meet up every year or every other year and simply carry on as if time hadn’t passed at all. Next, to the friends who I studied with: Marcus Foley, David Prendergast, Daniel Winter, Peter Curran and Paul O’Leary for generally dragging me through my first degree (in Physics) and also popping up again in later years in Germany and Amsterdam. I should next thank the Irish winter and my colleagues on the big dig for convincing me that my future lay in science and not in the freezing cold/archaeology.
On to Germany, to Tuebingen and the intercultural phenomena which are AEG, Erasmus and student exchanges. Tuebingen was such a wonderful place to find the world from with an amazing array of international flatmates (Sandrine, Summer, Mike, Ryu, Ales,. . . ) football teammates (Jonny, Johnny, Mark,. . . ) and drinking buddies (all of the above and so many more!) of all nationalities. But there was also time to become a diplom mathematiker with Nikolai, Yilmaz, Vera, Joris and Prof. Ihringer who all helped convince me that I was a physicist meddling in mathematics and not the other way around.
And so after a lively interlude at the LMU in Munich, it was onwards to Am-sterdam, but not without someone precious — my lovely then-pregnant, wife-to-be Yanchun. I have to thank Jook and especially Marian for the warm welcome they gave us in Amsterdam and our friends Holly and Massimo, Devi and Steven, Tommy (always ready for tennis or a beer) and Mary (always ready with a helpful hand) for making life fun. My thanks also to Raoul and Roland and all the others who allowed me over the years to take out the frustration of the lab rat on a tennis court wherever we could find it. And to the students and teachers at the chinese school in Amsterdam, who managed to make me realize the delicacy of the dutch language as well as the mysteries of mandarin. I also want to mention Yanchun’s family her Dad, her brother, her sister-in-law and little Huanhuan, but especially her wonderful Mum who helped out so much. xie xie!
While writing this thesis the whole lab moved from valckenierstraat to the science park and I moved to industry and the provinces, so I really have to thank the DPP team at ASML for allowing me the flexibility to take time off to work on my thesis when I needed and for providing a stimulating and open working environment that made the writing in the evenings much easier. Oh and Simon, who always managed a bit of perspective on things. I also want to thank our friends in Vught, Maarten and Red and our lovely neighbours (Paul, Morven, Rieta) for giving us a near instant feeling of home here.
And speaking of home the last and greatest thanks goes to my dear Yanchun. Nine years of my rollercoaster ride of despair, grumpiness, late evenings, elation, resignation and squeezed out success, how did you manage to put up with it? You deserve your own doctor title so much; maybe you felt the only way to understand my struggle was to join in. Your unique way of looking at the world, your passion, love and support pulled me through this, so I have you to thank the most. We started in January 2004 as two but with another on the way but now we have two lovely daughters 4 and 8 years old. Leaya and Zhurui: Mama and Papa have now both written books and both will have doctor titles, just like dr. Seuss. And best of all you don’t have to hear that word that means "I’m busy": thesis!
