Ultracold alkali atoms provide experimentally accessible model systems for probing quantum states that manifest themselves at the macroscopic scale. Recent experimental realizations of superfluidity in dilute gases of ultracold fermionic atoms offer exciting opportunities to directly test theoretical models of related many-body fermion systems that are inaccessible to experimental manipulation. However, the microscopic interactions between fermions are potentially quite complex, and experiments in ultracold gases to date cannot clearly distinguish between the qualitatively different microscopic models that have been proposed. I will theoretically demonstrate to you that optical measurements of electron spin noise can probe the entangled quantum states of ultracold fermionic atomic gases and unambiguously reveal the detailed nature of the interatomic interactions. Experimental measurements of spin noise in classical alkali vapors are used to estimate the expected signal magnitudes for spin noise measurements in ultracold atom systems and to show that these measurements are feasible.
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