Quantum effects in cold and controlled molecular dynamics

Science Colloquium at DFA, by Professor Dr Christane Koch, FU-Berlin, Germany.

Abstract. The wave nature of matter emerges at very low energy or very short timescales. In my talk I will present two such examples from molecular physics – quantum scattering resonances in low-energy collisions and quantum control of photoelectron circular dichroism (PECD) in the ultrafast ionization of chiral molecules. Both examples testify to the importance of theory and experiment evolving together.

Bio. Christiane Koch studied physics at the Humboldt University Berlin, followed by a PhD at the Fritz-Haber-Institute Berlin in theoretical surface science. The focus of her postdoctoral work at Laboratoire Aimé Cotton in Orsay and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem was the coherent control of cold collisions. Realizing that molecular physics methods should be useful for quantum information science, Christiane combined the two fields when returning to Germany with an Emmy Noether research group. She became a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Kassel in 2010. Since 2019, Professor Dr Christiane Koch is Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. She is the leader of the Quantum Dynamics and Control Group at the Dahlem Center for Complex Quantum Systems, Berlin, Germany.