Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physicist (PhD)

Role Overview

Contribute to a public benchmark of research-level physics challenges designed to evaluate genuine physics research reasoning by advanced AI systems. This is research-grade work requiring complete, clearly written reasoning that another specialist can independently follow and verify. Review the CritPt benchmark paper, arXiv:2509.26574, before applying to assess your interest in the work.

Assignments are matched to your publication record and subfield expertise. Your work may involve creating physics problems, solving them, reviewing completed work, or auditing it.

Research Areas

• Strong-field and high-harmonic generation, structured light, and angular momentum, including high-harmonic generation, orbital and spin angular momentum, optical helicity, selection rules, self-torque, and strong-field light-matter interaction.
• Levitated optomechanics involving optical binding and dipole-dipole coupled oscillators, including optical tweezers, Rayleigh point-dipole approximation, Gaussian beam propagation, nonreciprocal coupling, and coupled harmonic oscillator normal modes.
• Levitated optomechanics involving torsional and librational modes of anisotropic nanoparticles, including dielectric ellipsoid polarizability, light-induced torques, rigid-body rotational dynamics, harmonic quantization, and beam-splitter coupling Hamiltonians.
• Precision measurement with Penning-trap quantum cyclotron systems and cavity QED radiative shifts, including geonium theory, single-electron quantum cyclotron work, radiation-field quantization, perturbation theory, dipole approximation, self-energy subtraction, and electron magnetic-moment tests.
• Ultracold atoms in optical lattices, including laser-interference potentials, AC Stark shifts, atomic polarizability, tight-binding Hamiltonians, Wannier functions, lattice-well harmonic approximations, s-wave contact pseudopotentials, recoil energy, deep-lattice expansions, and ultracold-fermion quantum simulation.
• Cavity QED, including Jaynes-Cummings interactions, bright and dark states, Lindblad master equations, spontaneous emission, coherent radiation states, open-system steady states, photon-number coherences, and decoherence.
• Few-body physics, including the Efimov effect, hyperspherical methods, zero-range boundary conditions, discrete scale invariance, bosonic permutation symmetrization, large-scattering-length universality, and wave-function overlap integrals.

Qualifications

• PhD in atomic, molecular, or optical physics, or a closely related field. Postdoctoral researchers, research scientists, and junior faculty are particularly well suited; senior PhD students with a strong first-author publication record may apply.
• Published research on the exact phenomenon for the selected area, rather than only an adjacent topic.
• A verifiable record of three to five representative publications, preferably first-author papers from the past five years, provided with arXiv IDs or DOIs.
• Your publications must demonstrate at least one relevant method family: light-matter methods; trap and oscillator dynamics; open quantum systems; precision QED; or lattice and few-body methods.
• Working proficiency in LaTeX, Python, SymPy, and Jupyter. Familiarity with an agentic coding extension in VS Code is helpful. Skill gaps may be considered when disclosed accurately.
• English proficiency at B2 level or higher, including the ability to communicate written technical reasoning clearly.

Work Terms

• Remote, asynchronous hourly engagement with no fixed working hours.
• Commit approximately 10 hours per week across an 8 to 10 week period, beginning immediately.

Compensation

Pay ranges from $80 to $110 per hour, determined by the depth of alignment with the relevant subdomain.

Application Process

• Complete the application form with your education, research experience, method self-assessment, and up to five research areas that best match your expertise.
• For every selected area, provide an arXiv ID or DOI for your own paper, your author position, and the methods demonstrated. Areas selected without supporting publication evidence are not scored.
• Your papers and authorship will be verified against public records.
• Qualified applicants may proceed directly to onboarding or be invited to a short live alignment call to confirm the research area and assignment. A 30 to 45 minute assessment may be requested when needed, though most applicants will not complete one.