26th Australian Institute of Physics Congress and the Australian and New Zealand Conference on Optics and Photonics

Session

AIP ATMOP: Rydberg Atoms, Clocks and Spectroscopy

ATMOP

10 Dec 2026, 16:30

Belinda Hutchinson Building (The University of Sydney )

183. Metastable excitation of the noble gases by positron/electron impact

Mr Liam Wymer (Research School of Physics, Australian National University)

10/12/2026, 16:30

AIP | Atomic and Molecular Physics (ATMOP)

Contributed Oral

The ANU positron group has been investigating metastable excitation of atoms and molecules by electron and positron impact, with a current focus on positron-impact excitation of noble gases$^{[1]}$. Excitation of low-lying metastable states in these systems typically requires an electron spin-flip. In electron collisions, such transitions can proceed via the exchange or spin-orbit...

379. Measurement of a Quantum System using Spin-Mechanical Conversion

Alexander Wood (University of Melbourne)

10/12/2026, 16:45

AIP | Atomic and Molecular Physics (ATMOP)

Contributed Oral

Levitated macroscopic particles exhibiting quantum mechanical effects are garnering increased attention as a means for precision sensing and testing quantum mechanics. Defects in diamond, such as the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centre possess optically-addressable spins with long coherence times at room temperature and offer an intriguing system to examine quantum spin dynamics coupled to a...

565. Rydberg exciton-polarons in doped two-dimensional semiconductors

Brendan Mulkerin

10/12/2026, 17:00

AIP | Atomic and Molecular Physics (ATMOP)

Contributed Oral

When a mobile exciton is immersed in a Fermi sea of charge carriers, it is dressed, forming attractive and repulsive polaron branches, whose low-energy physics is captured by the crossover between the trion and polaron pictures [1]. While this ground-state polaron physics is now well established, the fate of Rydberg-exciton states under doping — and their relationship to the excited trion...

617. Low Frequency Electric Field Detection with Rydberg Atoms

Guillaume Gauthier (The University of Queensland)

10/12/2026, 17:15

AIP | Atomic and Molecular Physics (ATMOP)

Contributed Oral

Low-frequency electric field detection remains a significant challenge for conventional antenna-based sensors due to their large size and limited sensitivity. Rydberg atom–based vapor-cell sensors offer a promising alternative for quasi-DC electric field sensing; however, their performance is constrained by electric-field screening arising from charge accumulation within the cell. I will be...

657. Algebraic origin and multichannel breakdown of singlet-triplet ordering in carbon Rydberg series.

Jorge Campos Gonzalez Angulo (University of Queensland)

10/12/2026, 17:30

AIP | Atomic and Molecular Physics (ATMOP)

Contributed Oral

Hund's first rule succeeds in ordering atomic excited term multiplets only about half the time; the alternating rule repairs this limitation by tying the singlet–triplet sign to the relation between coupled and uncoupled orbital angular momenta. This alternation can be traced to a phase in the electron-coupling algebra. Using the second-quantised factorisation of the interelectronic potential...

684. Direct comb excitation for two-colour rubidium-87 optical atomic clocks

Lachlan Pointon (Adelaide University)

10/12/2026, 17:45

AIP | Atomic and Molecular Physics (ATMOP)

Contributed Oral

Much of the critical infrastructure of the modern world relies on timing signals disseminated by Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) networks. At the heart of these networks are portable atomic clocks, forming the essential link between high-performance laboratory clocks for testing fundamental physics and field-deployable devices for real-world applications, including aboard PNT...