14 research outputs found
Probing the Superfluid to Mott Insulator Transition at the Single Atom Level
Quantum gases in optical lattices offer an opportunity to experimentally
realize and explore condensed matter models in a clean, tunable system. We
investigate the Bose-Hubbard model on a microscopic level using single
atom-single lattice site imaging; our technique enables space- and
time-resolved characterization of the number statistics across the
superfluid-Mott insulator quantum phase transition. Site-resolved probing of
fluctuations provides us with a sensitive local thermometer, allows us to
identify microscopic heterostructures of low entropy Mott domains, and enables
us to measure local quantum dynamics, revealing surprisingly fast transition
timescales. Our results may serve as a benchmark for theoretical studies of
quantum dynamics, and may guide the engineering of low entropy phases in a
lattice
Counting atoms using interaction blockade in an optical superlattice
We report on the observation of an interaction blockade effect for ultracold
atoms in optical lattices, analogous to Coulomb blockade observed in mesoscopic
solid state systems. When the lattice sites are converted into biased double
wells, we detect a discrete set of steps in the well population for increasing
bias potentials. These correspond to tunneling resonances where the atom number
on each side of the barrier changes one by one. This allows us to count and
control the number of atoms within a given well. By evaluating the amplitude of
the different plateaus, we can fully determine the number distribution of the
atoms in the lattice, which we demonstrate for the case of a superfluid and
Mott insulating regime of 87Rb.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Free fermion antibunching in a degenerate atomic Fermi gas released from an optical lattice
Noise in a quantum system is fundamentally governed by the statistics and the
many-body state of the underlying particles. Whereas for bosonic particles the
correlated noise observed for e.g. photons or bosonic neutral atoms can still
be explained within a classical field description with fluctuating phases, the
anticorrelations in the detection of fermionic particles have no classical
analogue. The observation of such fermionic antibunching is so far scarce and
has been confined to electrons and neutrons. Here we report on the first direct
observation of antibunching of neutral fermionic atoms. Through an analysis of
the atomic shot noise in a set of standard absorption images, of a gas of
fermionic 40K atoms released from an optical lattice, we find reduced
correlations for distances related to the original spacing of the trapped
atoms. The detection of such quantum statistical correlations has allowed us to
characterise the ordering and temperature of the Fermi gas in the lattice.
Moreover, our findings are an important step towards revealing fundamental
fermionic many-body quantum phases in periodic potentials, which are at the
focus of current research.Comment: (Nature, in press
Single-particle-sensitive imaging of freely propagating ultracold atoms
We present a novel imaging system for ultracold quantum gases in expansion.
After release from a confining potential, atoms fall through a sheet of
resonant excitation laser light and the emitted fluorescence photons are imaged
onto an amplified CCD camera using a high numerical aperture optical system.
The imaging system reaches an extraordinary dynamic range, not attainable with
conventional absorption imaging. We demonstrate single-atom detection for
dilute atomic clouds with high efficiency where at the same time dense
Bose-Einstein condensates can be imaged without saturation or distortion. The
spatial resolution can reach the sampling limit as given by the 8 \mu m pixel
size in object space. Pulsed operation of the detector allows for slice images,
a first step toward a 3D tomography of the measured object. The scheme can
easily be implemented for any atomic species and all optical components are
situated outside the vacuum system. As a first application we perform
thermometry on rubidium Bose-Einstein condensates created on an atom chip.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures. v2: as publishe
Condensed Matter Theory of Dipolar Quantum Gases
Recent experimental breakthroughs in trapping, cooling and controlling
ultracold gases of polar molecules, magnetic and Rydberg atoms have paved the
way toward the investigation of highly tunable quantum systems, where
anisotropic, long-range dipolar interactions play a prominent role at the
many-body level. In this article we review recent theoretical studies
concerning the physics of such systems. Starting from a general discussion on
interaction design techniques and microscopic Hamiltonians, we provide a
summary of recent work focused on many-body properties of dipolar systems,
including: weakly interacting Bose gases, weakly interacting Fermi gases,
multilayer systems, strongly interacting dipolar gases and dipolar gases in 1D
and quasi-1D geometries. Within each of these topics, purely dipolar effects
and connections with experimental realizations are emphasized.Comment: Review article; submitted 09/06/2011. 158 pages, 52 figures. This
document is the unedited author's version of a Submitted Work that was
subsequently accepted for publication in Chemical Reviews, copyright American
Chemical Society after peer review. To access the final edited and published
work, a link will be provided soo