Ultracold atom-ion interactions

The field of ultracold atoms is a rich field of study which in the last couple of decades produced extraordinary experimental results such as the generation of quantum degenerate gases at sub micro K temperature, the study of various quantum phase-transitions among many other examples. Ultracold trapped-ions is another vibrant field of research which was able, in the last two decades, to demonstrate spectacular coherent control and advance the fields of quantum computing, frequency standards and precision measurements. In recent years several experiments have undertaken the task of combining these two systems and study ultracold atom-ion mixtures. In this colloquium I'll review these efforts with particular focus on recent studies of an ultracold Rb-Sr+ mixture at the Weizmann institute of Science.