430 research outputs found
Trapping and Cooling a mirror to its quantum mechanical ground state
We propose a technique aimed at cooling a harmonically oscillating mirror to
its quantum mechanical ground state starting from room temperature. Our method,
which involves the two-sided irradiation of the vibrating mirror inside an
optical cavity, combines several advantages over the two-mirror arrangements
being used currently. For comparable parameters the three-mirror configuration
provides a stiffer trap for the oscillating mirror. Furthermore it prevents
bistability from limiting the use of higher laser powers for mirror trapping,
and also partially does so for mirror cooling. Lastly, it improves the
isolation of the mirror from classical noise so that its dynamics are perturbed
mostly by the vacuum fluctuations of the optical fields. These improvements are
expected to bring the task of achieving ground state occupation for the mirror
closer to completion.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur
Optomechanical trapping and cooling of partially transparent mirrors
We consider the radiative trapping and cooling of a partially transmitting
mirror suspended inside an optical cavity, generalizing the case of a perfectly
reflecting mirror previously considered [M. Bhattacharya and P. Meystre, Phys.
Rev. Lett. \textbf{99}, 073601 (2007)]. This configuration was recently used in
an experiment to cool a nanometers-thick membrane [Thompson \textit{et al.},
arXiv:0707.1724v2, 2007]. The self-consistent cavity field modes of this system
depend strongly on the position of the middle mirror, leading to important
qualitative differences in the radiation pressure effects: in one case, the
situation is similar that of a perfectly reflecting middle mirror, with only
minor quantitative modifications. In addition, we also identify a range of
mirror positions for which the radiation-mirror coupling becomes purely
dispersive and the back-action effects that usually lead to cooling are absent,
although the mirror can still be optically trapped. The existence of these two
regimes leads us to propose a bichromatic scheme that optimizes the cooling and
trapping of partially transmissive mirrors.Comment: Submitted to Phys.Rev.
Entanglement of a Laguerre-Gaussian cavity mode with a rotating mirror
It has previously been shown theoretically that the exchange of linear
momentum between the light field in an optical cavity and a vibrating end
mirror can entangle the electromagnetic field with the vibrational motion of
that mirror. In this paper we consider the rotational analog of this situation
and show that radiation torque can similarly entangle a Laguerre-Gaussian
cavity mode with a rotating end mirror. We examine the mirror-field
entanglement as a function of ambient temperature, radiation detuning and
orbital angular momentum carried by the cavity mode.Comment: 5 figures, 1 table, submitted to Phys.Rev.
Using a Laguerre-Gaussian beam to trap and cool the rotational motion of a mirror
We show theoretically that it is possible to trap and cool the rotational
motion of a macroscopic mirror made of a perfectly reflecting spiral phase
element using orbital angular momentum transfer from a Laguerre-Gaussian
optical field. This technique offers a promising route to the placement of the
rotor in its quantum mechanical ground state in the presence of thermal noise.
It also opens up the possibility of simultaneously cooling a vibrational mode
of the same mirror. Lastly, the proposed design may serve as a sensitive
torsional balance in the quantum regime.Comment: New cavity design, reworked title; to appear in Phys. Rev. Let
Diffraction of ultra-cold fermions by quantized light fields: Standing versus traveling waves
We study the diffraction of quantum degenerate fermionic atoms off of
quantized light fields in an optical cavity. We compare the case of a linear
cavity with standing wave modes to that of a ring cavity with two
counter-propagating traveling wave modes. It is found that the dynamics of the
atoms strongly depends on the quantization procedure for the cavity field. For
standing waves, no correlations develop between the cavity field and the atoms.
Consequently, standing wave Fock states yield the same results as a classical
standing wave field while coherent states give rise to a collapse and revivals
in the scattering of the atoms. In contrast, for traveling waves the scattering
results in quantum entanglement of the radiation field and the atoms. This
leads to a collapse and revival of the scattering probability even for Fock
states. The Pauli Exclusion Principle manifests itself as an additional
dephasing of the scattering probability
Number statistics of molecules formed from ultra-cold atoms
We calculate the number statistics of a single-mode molecular field excited
by photoassociation or via a Feshbach resonance from an atomic Bose-Einstein
condensate (BEC), a normal atomic Fermi gas and a Fermi system with pair
correlations (BCS state). We find that the molecule formation from a BEC is a
collective process that leads for short times to a coherent molecular state in
the quantum optical sense. Atoms in a normal Fermi gas, on the other hand, are
converted into molecules independently of each other and result for short times
in a molecular state analogous to that of a classical chaotic light source. The
BCS situation is intermediate between the two and goes from producing an
incoherent to a coherent molecular field with increasing gap parameter.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Cavity QED determination of atomic number statistics in optical lattices
We study the reflection of two counter-propagating modes of the light field
in a ring resonator by ultracold atoms either in the Mott insulator state or in
the superfluid state of an optical lattice. We obtain exact numerical results
for a simple two-well model and carry out statistical calculations appropriate
for the full lattice case. We find that the dynamics of the reflected light
strongly depends on both the lattice spacing and the state of the matter-wave
field. Depending on the lattice spacing, the light field is sensitive to
various density-density correlation functions of the atoms. The light field and
the atoms become strongly entangled if the latter are in a superfluid state, in
which case the photon statistics typically exhibit complicated multimodal
structures.Comment: 10 pages revtex, 13 figure
Itinerant ferromagnetism in an interacting Fermi gas with mass imbalance
We study the emergence of itinerant ferromagnetism in an ultra-cold atomic
gas with a variable mass ratio between the up and down spin species. Mass
imbalance breaks the SU(2) spin symmetry leading to a modified Stoner
criterion. We first elucidate the phase behavior in both the grand canonical
and canonical ensembles. Secondly, we apply the formalism to a harmonic trap to
demonstrate how a mass imbalance delivers unique experimental signatures of
ferromagnetism. These could help future experiments to better identify the
putative ferromagnetic state. Furthermore, we highlight how a mass imbalance
suppresses the three-body loss processes that handicap the formation of a
ferromagnetic state. Finally, we study the time dependent formation of the
ferromagnetic phase following a quench in the interaction strength
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