NASA’s Cold Atom Lab: Quantum Science and Technology Maturation on the International Space Station

 Jason Williams, CAL Project Scientist and Principal Investigator

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

 The Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL) launched to the International Space Station (ISS) on May 21, 2018, and has been operating since that time as the world’s first multi-user facility for the study of ultra-cold quantum gases in space. The unique microgravity environment of the ISS is utilized with CAL by a national group of principal investigators to achieve sub-nanokelvin temperature gases, to study and utilize their quantum properties in an environment free from the perturbing force of gravity, and to observe and interact with these gases in the essentially limitless freefall of Earth’s orbit. In addition to the toolbox of quantum-gas capabilities originally built into CAL, an upgrade in 2020 enabled the study of atom interferometry in orbit, and a 2021 upgrade and repair facilitated investigations of the interactions between mixtures of ⁸⁷Rb, ³⁹K, and ⁴¹K and a demonstration of dual-species (⁸⁷Rb - ⁴¹K or ⁸⁷Rb - ³⁹K) atom interferometry. This talk will review the up-to-date quantum gas research explored with CAL and the technical accomplishments to operate, maintain, and upgrade CAL during its tenure in the microgravity environment of the ISS. The research of CAL has broad applications in fundamental physics and precision sensing to open the door for NASA’s future quantum-enabled mission opportunities.

This research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Dipolar Quantum Matter with Polar Molecules

Recently, the first BEC of polar molecules was realized at Columbia. By eliminating two- and three-body collisional losses via double microwave shielding, gases of sodium-cesium molecules are evaporatively cooled to quantum degeneracy. Dipolar interactions can be induced by unbalancing the two microwave fields or by inducing ellipticity in one of the fields. As the dipolar interactions increase, the gas transitions to either self-bound droplets or droplet arrays. For very strong dipolar interactions we estimate that their characteristic length scale can exceed the interparticle separation. In totality, polar molecules offer a new paradigm for quantum gases with strong and flexible long-range interactions.

Keywords: Bose-Einstein condensates, ultracold molecules

Chemistry Perspectives to Exotic Quantum Phenomena

Abstract: The design and discovery of novel materials exhibiting exotic quantum phenomena are expected to play a pivotal role in advancing next-generation technologies. In this talk, I will present an overview of the research progress made by our group over the past three years, for example, the identification of new quantum magnetic materials under both ambient and high-pressure conditions. Another key aspect of our work involves applying chemical bonding theory to predict metastable high-pressure phases in magnetic semiconducting materials. These predictions have been experimentally validated, providing insight into the underlying physics of these complex systems. Additionally, the development of permanent ferromagnetic materials with extremely large magnetic anisotropy is crucial for future technological applications, such as energy-efficient motors and data storage. Leveraging crystal symmetry principles and structure–property relationships, we have successfully designed new ferromagnetic compounds exhibiting magnetic anisotropy surpassing that of SmCo₅. I will discuss our approach to designing these materials from both experimental and theoretical perspectives, including the integration of machine learning techniques to accelerate discovery.

Key words: Novel quantum materials; High pressure; X-ray and Neutron Scattering

Relevant papers:

1. Boswell, M., Xu, M., Wang, H., Cheng, M., Li, N., Sun, X.F., Zhou, H., Cao, H., Li, M., Xie, W.* Frustrated Magnetism in FeGe₃O₄ with a Chiral Trillium Network., Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2026, accepted.
2. Boswell, M., Xu, M., Hus, S.M., Dos Santos, A.M., Xie, W.* Temperature-Dependent Structural Transition in Cu-Intercalated Trigonal CuYbSe₂. Chemistry of Materials, 2025, 38(1), 328-335.
3. Xu, M., Gonzalez Jimenez, J.L., Jose, G.C., Boonkird, A., Xing, C., Harrod, C., Li, X., Zhou, H.D., Ke, X., Bi, W., Li, M., Xie, W.* Spin–Flop and Metamagnetic Transition in Monoclinic Eu₄Bi₆Se₁₃. Chemistry of Materials, 2025, 37(5), 1935-1941.
4. Xu, M., Lee, Y., Ke, X., Kang, M.C., Boswell, M., Bud’ko, S.L., Zhou, L., Ke, L., Li, M., Canfield, P.C., Xie, W.* Giant uniaxial magnetocrystalline anisotropy in SmCrGe₃. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2024, 146(44), 30294-30302.
5. Xie, W.* The search for superconductivity just got wider. Nature, 2024, 509-510.

Emergent Magnetism and Correlation in Complex Materials: A First-Principles Perspective

Abstract: Novel magnetic materials can exhibit the strong correlation of electrons as the localized magnetic moments are strongly coupled with the neighboring electronic/magnetic degrees of freedom.  These strongly correlated magnetic materials are promising candidates for future quantum devices due to their tunability under strain, pressure, and chemical dopings. First-principles studies of such materials have been challenging since the widely used density functional theory method often fails to capture the strong correlation effect in materials. In this talk, I will demonstrate that the advanced dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) method can be successfully applied to the design and understanding of various novel properties of strongly correlated materials. First, I will discuss the orbital-selective Mott state and the possible tuning of electronic structure such as the trigonal crystal field in a honeycomb lattice, Na₃Co₂SbO₆ under strain and pressure, which has been suggested as a possible candidate to realize the Kitaev spin liquid phase. Second, I will discuss the correlated electronic structure and magnetism of the Co_1/3NbS₂ compound, where Co ions are intercalated between NbS₂ layers forming a triangular lattice. The spin susceptibility and Fermi surface calculations using DMFT can capture the leading 3q magnetic instability of this material, which is necessary to explain the measured large anomalous Hall conductivity.

Bio

Hyowon Park is an Associate Professor of Physics at University of Illinois at Chicago, and a joint Scientist at Argonne National Laboratory. He earned his Ph.D from Rutgers University in 2011 and was a post-doc researcher at Columbia University. He was a recipient of the Outstanding Young Researcher Award (2019) from the Association of Korean Physicists in America. His research focuses on studying various novel properties of strongly correlated materials using advanced computational and first-principles methods.

Title: Fast and furious: The Early Universe with JWST 

Abstract: The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is revolutionizing our understanding of the early universe, finding earlier and brighter sources than expected. In this talk I will explore how these new observations fit — or don’t — within our cosmological and galaxy-formation models. First, I will discuss the unexpectedly high abundance of galaxies in the first few hundred million years of cosmic history (redshift z>9), and how to use cosmological clustering measurements to understand its origin. Then, I will show the first empirical measurement of how star-formation burstiness depends on mass for the first galaxies, providing a resolution to the overabundance of early galaxies. Finally, I will examine emerging tensions between JWST measurements of cosmic reionization and complementary probes, including the CMB and the Lyman-alpha forest, and discuss implications for cosmology, astrophysics, and line-intensity mapping.