Tanya Zelevinsky is a professor of physics at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...

. Her research focuses on high-precision spectroscopy of cold molecules for fundamental physics measurements, including molecular lattice clocks, ultracold molecule photodissociation, as well as cooling and quantum state manipulation techniques for diatomic molecules with the goal of testing the

Standard Model The Standard Model of particle physics is the theory describing three of the four known fundamental forces ( electromagnetic, weak and strong interactions - excluding gravity) in the universe and classifying all known elementary particles. I ...

of particle physics. Zelevinsky graduated from MIT in 1999 and received her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2004 with

Gerald Gabrielse Gerald Gabrielse is an American physicist. He is the Board of Trustees Professor of Physics and Director of the Center for Fundamental Physics at Northwestern University, and Emeritus George Vasmer Leverett Professor of Physics at Harvard Univers ...

as her thesis advisor. Subsequently, she worked as a post-doctoral research associate at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (

JILA JILA, formerly known as the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics, is a physical science research institute in the United States. JILA is located on the University of Colorado Boulder campus. JILA was founded in 1962 as a joint institute ...

) with

Jun Ye Jun Ye (; born 1967) is a Chinese-American physicist at JILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the University of Colorado Boulder, working primarily in the field of atomic, molecular and optical physics. Education & career ...

on atomic lattice clocks. She joined Columbia University as an associate professor of physics in 2008. Professor Zelevinsky became a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2018 and received the

Francis M. Pipkin Award The Francis M. Pipkin Award is a physics prize given by the American Physical Society (APS) every two years since 1999. The award was established in 1997 by the American Physical Society's the Topical Group on Precision Measurement and Fundamental ...

in 2019.

Research

Zelevinsky is known for her pioneering experiments with ultracold strontium, an

alkaline earth The alkaline earth metals are six chemical elements in group 2 of the periodic table. They are beryllium (Be), magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca), strontium (Sr), barium (Ba), and radium (Ra).. The elements have very similar properties: they are ...

element. Zelevinsky performed seminal work on the strontium

optical lattice clock An atomic clock is a clock that measures time by monitoring the resonant frequency of atoms. It is based on atoms having different energy levels. Electron states in an atom are associated with different energy levels, and in transitions betwe ...

in the group of

and was the first to use narrow-linewidth laser light to create diatomic molecules of this class in an

optical lattice An optical lattice is formed by the interference of counter-propagating laser beams, creating a spatially periodic polarization pattern. The resulting periodic potential may trap neutral atoms via the Stark shift. Atoms are cooled and congreg ...

at ultracold temperatures, determining their molecular binding energies to a greater precision than was previously achievable in molecular beam and heat-pipe studies. This has the potential to furnish an ensemble of molecular clocks where quantized molecular vibrations determine the 'ticking' rate. Together with Robert Moszyński and her students, Zelevinsky settled a long-standing question about the role of quantum interference in the angular patterns of molecular photofragments. At a temperature of tens of millikelvin, the work constitutes one of the first clear demonstrations of quantum

photochemistry Photochemistry is the branch of chemistry concerned with the chemical effects of light. Generally, this term is used to describe a chemical reaction caused by absorption of ultraviolet (wavelength from 100 to 400 nm), visible light (400– ...

. Additionally, Zelevinsky is exploring ways to experimentally cool molecules in order to manipulate and study them using a combination of buffer gas cooling and laser cooling with the goal of creating magneto-optical traps of exotic gases. Zelevinsky is also one of the principal investigators of the CeNTREX collaboration with

David DeMille David P. DeMille is an American physicist and Professor of Physics at the University of Chicago. He is best known for his use of polar diatomic molecules to search for symmetry-violating effects within the molecules and as a means for manipul ...

to search for the deformation in the shape of atomic nuclei known as a Schiff moment using the thallium fluoride molecule.

Education

While an undergraduate at

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern t ...

, Zelevinsky attended a summer school on atomic physics in Los Alamos. She recalls this as an important part of her career and said "I really enjoyed the fact that only two or three investigators work on the experiments and that one can experience and understand the whole project".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zelevinsky, Tanya Columbia University faculty Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Harvard University alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Fellows of the American Physical Society