247 research outputs found
Controlled splitting of an atomic wave packet
We propose a simple scheme capable of adiabatically splitting an atomic wave
packet using two independent translating traps. Implemented with optical dipole
traps, our scheme allows a high degree of flexibility for atom interferometry
arrangements and highlights its potential as an efficient and high fidelity
atom optical beam splitter.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. Accepted by Phys. Rev. Let
Cavity-based single atom preparation and high-fidelity hyperfine state readout
We prepare and detect the hyperfine state of a single 87Rb atom coupled to a
fiber-based high finesse cavity on an atom chip. The atom is extracted from a
Bose-Einstein condensate and trapped at the maximum of the cavity field,
resulting in a reproducibly strong atom-cavity coupling. We use the cavity
reflection and transmission signal to infer the atomic hyperfine state with a
fidelity exceeding 99.92% in a read-out time of 100 microseconds. The atom is
still trapped after detection.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Spin squeezing, entanglement and quantum metrology with Bose-Einstein condensates
Squeezed states, a special kind of entangled states, are known as a useful
resource for quantum metrology. In interferometric sensors they allow to
overcome the "classical" projection noise limit stemming from the independent
nature of the individual photons or atoms within the interferometer. Motivated
by the potential impact on metrology as wells as by fundamental questions in
the context of entanglement, a lot of theoretical and experimental effort has
been made to study squeezed states. The first squeezed states useful for
quantum enhanced metrology have been proposed and generated in quantum optics,
where the squeezed variables are the coherences of the light field. In this
tutorial we focus on spin squeezing in atomic systems. We give an introduction
to its concepts and discuss its generation in Bose-Einstein condensates. We
discuss in detail the experimental requirements necessary for the generation
and direct detection of coherent spin squeezing. Two exemplary experiments
demonstrating adiabatically prepared spin squeezing based on motional degrees
of freedom and diabatically realized spin squeezing based on internal hyperfine
degrees of freedom are discussed.Comment: Phd tutorial, 23 pages, 17 figure
Developing an integrated BIM/LCA framework to assess the sustainability of using earthen architecture
Effective spin model for interband transport in a Wannier-Stark lattice system
We show that the interband dynamics in a tilted two-band Bose-Hubbard model
can be reduced to an analytically accessible spin model in the case of resonant
interband oscillations. This allows us to predict the revival time of these
oscillations which decay and revive due to inter-particle interactions. The
presented mapping onto the spin model and the so achieved reduction of
complexity has interesting perspectives for future studies of many-body
systems.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure
Andreev bound states in high- superconducting junctions
The formation of bound states at surfaces of materials with an energy gap in
the bulk electron spectrum is a well known physical phenomenon. At
superconductor surfaces, quasiparticles with energies inside the
superconducting gap may be trapped in bound states in quantum wells,
formed by total reflection against the vacuum and total Andreev reflection
against the superconductor. Since an electron reflects as a hole and sends a
Cooper pair into the superconductor, the surface states give rise to resonant
transport of quasiparticle and Cooper pair currents, and may be observed in
tunneling spectra. In superconducting junctions, these surface states may
hybridize and form bound Andreev states, trapped between the superconducting
electrodes. In d-wave superconductors, the order parameter changes sign under
rotation and, as a consequence, Andreev reflection may lead to the
formation of zero energy quasiparticle bound states, midgap states (MGS). The
formation of MGS is a robust feature of d-wave superconductivity and provides a
unified framework for many important effects which will be reviewed: large
Josephson current, low-temperature anomaly of the critical Josephson current,
-junction behavior, junction crossover with temperature,
zero-bias conductance peaks, paramagnetic currents, time reversal symmetry
breaking, spontaneous interface currents, and resonance features in subgap
currents. Taken together these effects, when observed in experiments, provide
proof for d-wave superconductivity in the cuprates.Comment: 52 pages, 20 figures. Review article under consideration for
publication in Superconductor Science and Technolog
Is neuroblastoma screening evaluation needed and feasible?
Despite the five million children who have been screened for neuroblastoma in Japan through detection of catecholamine metabolites, it is still uncertain whether screening for this disease is beneficial. The Japanese study has clearly indicated that screening at 6 months or earlier leads to heavy overdiagnosis. It is shown in this paper that screening at a later age may give the same reduction in mortality with possibly less overdiagnosis. However, it is estimated that, even with two screens at 12 and 18 months, the reduction in mortality would not greatly exceed 25%, under realistic hypotheses on the length of the preclinical phase of the disease. The evaluation of the efficacy of this screening strategy would need the recruitment of half a million children per year over 5-7 years and the follow-up of an equal number of controls. Such a trial would improve our knowledge of the natural history of the disease and might help to answer some questions raised recently regarding its biological heterogeneity
Quantum states made to measure
Recent progress in manipulating quantum states of light and matter brings
quantum-enhanced measurements closer to prospective applications. The current
challenge is to make quantum metrologic strategies robust against
imperfections.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, Commentary for Nature Photonic
Atom chip based generation of entanglement for quantum metrology
Atom chips provide a versatile `quantum laboratory on a microchip' for
experiments with ultracold atomic gases. They have been used in experiments on
diverse topics such as low-dimensional quantum gases, cavity quantum
electrodynamics, atom-surface interactions, and chip-based atomic clocks and
interferometers. A severe limitation of atom chips, however, is that techniques
to control atomic interactions and to generate entanglement have not been
experimentally available so far. Such techniques enable chip-based studies of
entangled many-body systems and are a key prerequisite for atom chip
applications in quantum simulations, quantum information processing, and
quantum metrology. Here we report experiments where we generate multi-particle
entanglement on an atom chip by controlling elastic collisional interactions
with a state-dependent potential. We employ this technique to generate
spin-squeezed states of a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate and show that
they are useful for quantum metrology. The observed 3.7 dB reduction in spin
noise combined with the spin coherence imply four-partite entanglement between
the condensate atoms and could be used to improve an interferometric
measurement by 2.5 dB over the standard quantum limit. Our data show good
agreement with a dynamical multi-mode simulation and allow us to reconstruct
the Wigner function of the spin-squeezed condensate. The techniques
demonstrated here could be directly applied in chip-based atomic clocks which
are currently being set up
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