SYNTHETIC QUANTUM MANY-BODY SYSTEMS
This article discusses two different approaches to study the physics of quantum gases. We load a two-component Fermi gas of potassium atoms into an optical lattice and realize the Fermi-Hubbard model. We probe the crossover from a metal to a Mott insulator by measuring the number of doubly occupied lattice sites. A Bose-Einstein condensate placed into an ultrahigh-finesse optical cavity provides a many-body system with global interactions. We investigate this system in a regime where the physics of cavity optomechanics is revealed.