Francesca Ferlaino (born 1977) is an Italian-Austrian

experimental physicist Experimental physics is the category of disciplines and sub-disciplines in the field of physics that are concerned with the observation of physical phenomena and experiments. Methods vary from discipline to discipline, from simple experiments and o ...

known for her research on

quantum In physics, a quantum (plural quanta) is the minimum amount of any physical entity (physical property) involved in an interaction. The fundamental notion that a physical property can be "quantized" is referred to as "the hypothesis of quantizati ...

matter. She is a professor of physics at the

University of Innsbruck The University of Innsbruck (german: Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck; la, Universitas Leopoldino Franciscea) is a public research university in Innsbruck, the capital of the Austrian federal state of Tyrol, founded on October 15, 1669. ...

Biography

Francesca Ferlaino was born in

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

, Italy. She studied

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

at the

University of Naples Federico II The University of Naples Federico II ( it, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II) is a public university in Naples, Italy. Founded in 1224, it is the oldest public non-sectarian university in the world, and is now organized into 26 depar ...

(1995–2000) and was an undergraduate research fellow at the

International School for Advanced Studies The International School for Advanced Studies (Italian: ''Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati''; SISSA) is an international, state-supported, post-graduate-education and research institute in Trieste, Italy. SISSA is active in the ...

(SISSA) in

Trieste Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into provi ...

(1999–2000). She did a PhD in physics at the

University of Florence The University of Florence (Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Firenze'', UniFI) is an Italian public research university located in Florence, Italy. It comprises 12 schools and has around 50,000 students enrolled. History The first universi ...

and the

European Laboratory for Non-Linear Spectroscopy The European Laboratory for Non-linear Spectroscopy (LENS) is an interdisciplinary research center established by the Italian Ministry of Education in 1991 within the University of Florence thanks to the initiative of Prof. Salvatore Califano. ...

(LENS) (2001–2004). In 2007 she moved to the

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

, where she was a research and teaching associate and started her own research group. In 2014 she became a professor of physics at the University of Innsbruck and research director at the

Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information The Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) (german: Institut für Quantenoptik und Quanteninformation) is a member institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and was founded in November 2003, to create an Austrian resear ...

(IQOQI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

Work

Her research activity explores quantum phenomena in atomic gases at ultralow temperatures with contributions spanning topics including quantum matter of atoms and molecules and few-body and

scattering Scattering is a term used in physics to describe a wide range of physical processes where moving particles or radiation of some form, such as light or sound, are forced to deviate from a straight trajectory by localized non-uniformities (including ...

physics. Over the last years, she focuses specifically on the strongly magnetic, and rather unexplored,

Erbium Erbium is a chemical element with the symbol Er and atomic number 68. A silvery-white solid metal when artificially isolated, natural erbium is always found in chemical combination with other elements. It is a lanthanide, a rare-earth element ...

and

Dysprosium Dysprosium is the chemical element with the symbol Dy and atomic number 66. It is a rare-earth element in the lanthanide series with a metallic silver luster. Dysprosium is never found in nature as a free element, though, like other lanthanides, it ...

atomic species, realizing in 2012 world's first Bose-Einstein condensation of Erbium, and in 2018 the first dipolar quantum mixture of Erbium and Dysprosium. In 2019, she was able to prepare the first long-lived

supersolid In condensed matter physics, a supersolid is a spatially ordered material with superfluid properties. In the case of helium-4, it has been conjectured since the 1960s that it might be possible to create a supersolid. Starting from 2017, a defin ...

state, an elusive and paradoxical state where

superfluid Superfluidity is the characteristic property of a fluid with zero viscosity which therefore flows without any loss of kinetic energy. When stirred, a superfluid forms vortices that continue to rotate indefinitely. Superfluidity occurs in two ...

flow and

crystal A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macros ...

rigidity coexist. With these systems, she has explored a variety of many-body quantum phenomena dictated by the long-range and anisotropic dipolar interaction among the atoms. In 2021 she created supersolid states along two dimensions.

Awards and fellowships

Her work has earned her multiple awards, including the Grand Prix de Physique "Cécile-DeWitt Morette/École de Physique des Houches" from the

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV of France, Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific me ...

(2019), the Junior BEC Award (2019), the

Feltrinelli Prize The Feltrinelli Prize (from the Italian "Premio Feltrinelli", also known as "International Feltrinelli Prize" or "Antonio Feltrinelli Prize") is an award for achievement in the arts, music, literature, history, philosophy, medicine, and physical and ...

(2017) and the

Erwin Schrödinger Prize The Erwin Schrödinger Prize (German: Erwin Schrödinger-Preis) is an annual award presented by the Austrian Academy of Sciences for lifetime achievement by Austrians in the fields of mathematics and natural sciences. The prize was established i ...

(2017), the highest award of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. In addition, she is the recipient of an

Alexander von Humboldt Professorship The Alexander von Humboldt Professorship is an academic prize named after Alexander von Humboldt and awarded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation since 2008. The prize is intended to attract internationally leading scientists from abroad to Ger ...

(2013), a START-Prize (2009) and three ERC Grants (Starting 2010, Consolidator 2016 and Advanced 2022) She was elected as a

Fellow of the American Physical Society The American Physical Society honors members with the designation ''Fellow'' for having made significant accomplishments to the field of physics. The following lists are divided chronologically by the year of designation. * List of American Physic ...

(APS) in 2019, after a nomination from the APS Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, "for ground-breaking experiments on dipolar quantum gases of erbium atoms, including the attainment of quantum degeneracy of bosons and fermions, studies on quantum-chaotical scattering, the formation of quantum droplets, and investigations on the roton spectrum".

References

External links

Dipolar Quantum Gas Group
Research group of Francesca Ferlaino {{DEFAULTSORT:Ferlaino, Francesca 1977 births Living people People from Naples University of Naples Federico II alumni Quantum physicists 21st-century Austrian physicists Women physicists Fellows of the American Physical Society Academic staff of the University of Innsbruck Members of the Austrian Academy of Sciences European Research Council grantees