AMO physics needs funding

In its second report in recent months dealing with the future of physics, the National Research Council said that while atomic, molecular, and optical (AMO) science is thriving in the US, it faces six scientific “grand challenges” that require “reinforced” federal funding. “Although the [US] has led much of this research and development so far, the new questions in the field are more daunting than ever,” said Robert Eisenstein, co-chair of the NRC’s Committee on AMO 2010, which wrote the report, entitled Controlling the Quantum World. “We will not be able to maintain world leadership without a strong commitment to basic research in this area.” Stanford University physicist Philip Bucksbaum is the other co-chair.

The six challenges that need support, the report says, are new methods to measure the nature of space and time with high precision, the new field of coherent quantum gases, the development of new x-ray free-electron lasers and other high-intensity and short-wavelength sources, ultrafast quantum control, atom-by-atom control of quantum structures, and new approaches to quantum computing and communication.

The opportunities presented by these challenges, according to the report, are based on the “rapid and astounding” developments in federally funded AMO research.

The AMO report, released in July, comes on the heels of an NRC report on the outlook for elementary-particle physics (see Physics Today, June 2006, page 26 ). That report noted that US leadership in particle-physics research is “not secure” and called for the federal government to “do what is necessary to mount a compelling bid to build the proposed International Linear Collider on U.S. soil.”