3,634 research outputs found
Instabilities of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a periodic potential: an experimental investigation
By accelerating a Bose-Einstein condensate in a controlled way across the
edge of the Brillouin zone of a 1D optical lattice, we investigate the
stability of the condensate in the vicinity of the zone edge. Through an
analysis of the visibility of the interference pattern after a time-of-flight
and the widths of the interference peaks, we characterize the onset of
instability as the acceleration of the lattice is decreased. We briefly discuss
the significance of our results with respect to recent theoretical work.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures; submitted to Optics Express (Focus Issue on Cold
Atomic Gases in Optical Lattices
A lattice of double wells for manipulating pairs of cold atoms
We describe the design and implementation of a 2D optical lattice of double
wells suitable for isolating and manipulating an array of individual pairs of
atoms in an optical lattice. Atoms in the square lattice can be placed in a
double well with any of their four nearest neighbors. The properties of the
double well (the barrier height and relative energy offset of the paired sites)
can be dynamically controlled. The topology of the lattice is phase stable
against phase noise imparted by vibrational noise on mirrors. We demonstrate
the dynamic control of the lattice by showing the coherent splitting of atoms
from single wells into double wells and observing the resulting double-slit
atom diffraction pattern. This lattice can be used to test controlled neutral
atom motion among lattice sites and should allow for testing controlled
two-qubit gates.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figures Accepted for publication in Physical Review
Stimulated Raman adiabatic passage into continuum
We propose a technique which produces nearly complete ionization of the
population of a discrete state coupled to a continuum by a two-photon
transition via a lossy intermediate state whose lifetime is much shorter than
the interaction duration. We show that using counterintuitively ordered pulses,
as in stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP), wherein the pulse coupling
the intermediate state to the continuum precedes and partly overlaps the pulse
coupling the initial and intermediate states, greatly increases the ionization
signal and strongly reduces the population loss due to spontaneous emission
through the lossy state. For strong spontaneous emission from that state,
however, the ionization is never complete because the dark state required for
STIRAP does not exist. We demonstrate that this drawback can be eliminated
almost completely by creating a laser-induced continuum structure (LICS) by
embedding a third discrete state into the continuum with a third control laser.
This LICS introduces some coherence into the continuum, which enables a
STIRAP-like population transfer into the continuum. A highly accurate analytic
description is developed and numerical results are presented for Gaussian pulse
shapes
Preparation and detection of d-wave superfluidity in two-dimensional optical superlattices
We propose a controlled method to create and detect d-wave superfluidity with
ultracold fermionic atoms loaded in two-dimensional optical superlattices. Our
scheme consists in preparing an array of nearest-neighbor coupled square
plaquettes or ``superplaquettes'' and using them as building blocks to
construct a d-wave superfluid state. We describe how to use the coherent
dynamical evolution in such a system to experimentally probe the pairing
mechanism. We also derive the zero temperature phase diagram of the fermions in
a checkerboard lattice (many weakly coupled plaquettes) and show that by tuning
the inter-plaquette tunneling spin-dependently or varying the filling factor
one can drive the system into a d-wave superfluid phase or a Cooper pair
density wave phase. We discuss the use of noise correlation measurements to
experimentally probe these phases.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure
Collapse and revival in inter-band oscillations of a two-band Bose-Hubbard model
We study the effect of a many-body interaction on inter-band oscillations in
a two-band Bose-Hubbard model with external Stark force. Weak and strong
inter-band oscillations are observed, where the latter arise from a resonant
coupling of the bands. These oscillations collapse and revive due to a weak
two-body interaction between the atoms. Effective models for oscillations in
and out of resonance are introduced that provide predictions for the system's
behaviour, particularly for the time-scales for the collapse and revival of the
resonant inter-band oscillations.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure
Asymmetric Landau-Zener tunneling in a periodic potential
Using a simple model for nonlinear Landau-Zener tunneling between two energy
bands of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a periodic potential, we find that the
tunneling rates for the two directions of tunneling are not the same. Tunneling
from the ground state to the excited state is enhanced by the nonlinearity,
whereas in the opposite direction it is suppressed. These findings are
confirmed by numerical simulations of the condensate dynamics. Measuring the
tunneling rates for a condensate of rubidium atoms in an optical lattice, we
have found experimental evidence for this asymmetry.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Sympathetic cooling and collisional properties of a Rb-Cs mixture
We report on measurements of the collisional properties of a mixture of
Cs and Rb atoms in a magnetic trap at
temperatures. By selectively evaporating the Rb atoms using a radio-frequency
field, we achieved sympathetic cooling of Cs down to a few . The
inter-species collisional cross-section was determined through rethermalization
measurements, leading to an estimate of for the s-wave scattering
length for Rb in the and Cs in the magnetic
states. We briefly speculate on the prospects for reaching Bose-Einstein
condensation of Cs inside a magnetic trap through sympathetic cooling
Preparing and probing atomic number states with an atom interferometer
We describe the controlled loading and measurement of number-squeezed states
and Poisson states of atoms in individual sites of a double well optical
lattice. These states are input to an atom interferometer that is realized by
symmetrically splitting individual lattice sites into double wells, allowing
atoms in individual sites to evolve independently. The two paths then
interfere, creating a matter-wave double-slit diffraction pattern. The time
evolution of the double-slit diffraction pattern is used to measure the number
statistics of the input state. The flexibility of our double well lattice
provides a means to detect the presence of empty lattice sites, an important
and so far unmeasured factor in determining the purity of a Mott state
Sublattice addressing and spin-dependent motion of atoms in a double-well lattice
We load atoms into every site of an optical lattice and selectively spin flip
atoms in a sublattice consisting of every other site. These selected atoms are
separated from their unselected neighbors by less than an optical wavelength.
We also show spin-dependent transport, where atomic wave packets are coherently
separated into adjacent sites according to their internal state. These tools
should be useful for quantum information processing and quantum simulation of
lattice models with neutral atoms
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