Evanescent-wave trapping and evaporative cooling of an atomic gas near two-dimensionality

A dense gas of cesium atoms at the crossover to two-dimensionality is prepared in a highly anisotropic surface trap that is realized with two evanescent light waves. Temperatures as low as 100nK are reached with 20.000 atoms at a phase-space density close to 0.1. The lowest quantum state in the tightly confined direction is populated by more than 60%. The system offers intriguing prospects for future experiments on degenerate quantum gases in two dimensions

All Optical Formation of an Atomic Bose-Einstein Condensate

We have created a Bose-Einstein condensate of 87Rb atoms directly in an optical trap. We employ a quasi-electrostatic dipole force trap formed by two crossed CO_2 laser beams. Loading directly from a sub-doppler laser-cooled cloud of atoms results in initial phase space densities of ~1/200. Evaporatively cooling through the BEC transition is achieved by lowering the power in the trapping beams over ~ 2 s. The resulting condensates are F=1 spinors with 3.5 x 10^4 atoms distributed between the m_F = (-1,0,1) states.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Motional Squashed States

We show that by using a feedback loop it is possible to reduce the fluctuations in one quadrature of the vibrational degree of freedom of a trapped ion below the quantum limit. The stationary state is not a proper squeezed state, but rather a ``squashed'' state, since the uncertainty in the orthogonal quadrature, which is larger than the standard quantum limit, is unaffected by the feedback action.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the special Issue "Quantum Correlations and Fluctuations" of J. Opt.

Entanglement of atoms via cold controlled collisions

We show that by using cold controlled collisions between two atoms one can achieve conditional dynamics in moving trap potentials. We discuss implementing two qubit quantum--gates and efficient creation of highly entangled states of many atoms in optical lattices.Comment: 4 pages 3 figure

Multiple micro-optical atom traps with a spherically aberrated laser beam

We report on the loading of atoms contained in a magneto-optic trap into multiple optical traps formed within the focused beam of a CO_{2} laser. We show that under certain circumstances it is possible to create a linear array of dipole traps with well separated maxima. This is achieved by focusing the laser beam through lenses uncorrected for spherical aberration. We demonstrate that the separation between the micro-traps can be varied, a property which may be useful in experiments which require the creation of entanglement between atoms in different micro-traps. We suggest other experiments where an array of these traps could be useful.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure

Spinor Bosonic Atoms in Optical Lattices: Symmetry Breaking and Fractionalization

We study superfluid and Mott insulator phases of cold spin-1 Bose atoms with antiferromagnetic interactions in an optical lattice, including a usual polar condensate phase, a condensate of singlet pairs, a crystal spin nematic phase, and a spin singlet crystal phase. We suggest a possibility of exotic fractionalized phases of spinor BEC and discuss them in the language of topological defect condensation and $Z_2$ lattice gauge theory.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure included; references adde

Quantum Logic Gates in Optical Lattices

We propose a new system for implementing quantum logic gates: neutral atoms trapped in a very far-off-resonance optical lattice. Pairs of atoms are made to occupy the same well by varying the polarization of the trapping lasers, and then a near-resonant electric dipole is induced by an auxiliary laser. A controlled-NOT can be implemented by conditioning the target atomic resonance on a resolvable level shift induced by the control atom. Atoms interact only during logical operations, thereby suppressing decoherence.Comment: Revised version, To appear in Phys. Rev. Lett. Three separate postscript figure

All-Optical Production of a Degenerate Fermi Gas

We achieve degeneracy in a mixture of the two lowest hyperfine states of $^6$Li by direct evaporation in a CO$_2$ laser trap, yielding the first all-optically produced degenerate Fermi gas. More than $10^5$ atoms are confined at temperatures below $4 \mu$K at full trap depth, where the Fermi temperature for each state is $8 \mu$K. This degenerate two-component mixture is ideal for exploring mechanisms of superconductivity ranging from Cooper pairing to Bose condensation of strongly bound pairs.Comment: 4 pgs RevTeX with 2 eps figs, to be published in Phys. Rev. Let

Resolved-sideband Raman cooling to the ground state of an optical lattice

We trap neutral Cs atoms in a two-dimensional optical lattice and cool them close to the zero-point of motion by resolved-sideband Raman cooling. Sideband cooling occurs via transitions between the vibrational manifolds associated with a pair of magnetic sublevels and the required Raman coupling is provided by the lattice potential itself. We obtain mean vibrational excitations \bar{n}_x \approx \bar{n}_y \approx 0.01, corresponding to a population \sim 98% in the vibrational ground state. Atoms in the ground state of an optical lattice provide a new system in which to explore quantum state control and subrecoil laser coolingComment: PDF file, 13 pages including 3 figure

Intratumoral IL-12 delivery empowers CAR-T cell immunotherapy in a pre-clinical model of glioblastoma

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common and aggressive form of primary brain cancer, for which effective therapies are urgently needed. Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-based immunotherapy represents a promising therapeutic approach, but it is often impeded by highly immunosuppressive tumor microenvironments (TME). Here, in an immunocompetent, orthotopic GBM mouse model, we show that CAR-T cells targeting tumor-specific epidermal growth factor receptor variant III (EGFRvIII) alone fail to control fully established tumors but, when combined with a single, locally delivered dose of IL-12, achieve durable anti-tumor responses. IL-12 not only boosts cytotoxicity of CAR-T cells, but also reshapes the TME, driving increased infiltration of proinflammatory CD4+ T cells, decreased numbers of regulatory T cells (Treg), and activation of the myeloid compartment. Importantly, the immunotherapy-enabling benefits of IL-12 are achieved with minimal systemic effects. Our findings thus show that local delivery of IL-12 may be an effective adjuvant for CAR-T cell therapy for GBM