77 research outputs found
Why material slow light does not improve cavity-enhanced atom detection
We discuss the prospects for enhancing absorption and scattering of light
from a weakly coupled atom in a high-finesse optical cavity by adding a medium
with large, positive group index of refraction. The slow-light effect is known
to narrow the cavity transmission spectrum and increase the photon lifetime,
but the quality factor of the cavity may not be increased in a metrologically
useful sense. Specifically, detection of the weakly coupled atom through either
cavity ringdown measurements or the Purcell effect fails to improve with the
addition of material slow light. A single-atom model of the dispersive medium
helps elucidate why this is the case.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures; QuTiP python file included. This version:
changed title and added several references; results are unchanged. Accepted
for open access publication in a special issue of Journal of Modern Optics in
memory of Prof Danny Segal. Publisher's version available at
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500340.2017.138451
Progress in atom chips and the integration of optical microcavities
We review recent progress at the Centre for Cold Matter in developing atom
chips. An important advantage of miniaturizing atom traps on a chip is the
possibility of obtaining very tight trapping structures with the capability of
manipulating atoms on the micron length scale. We recall some of the pros and
cons of bringing atoms close to the chip surface, as is required in order to
make small static structures, and we discuss the relative merits of metallic,
dielectric and superconducting chip surfaces. We point out that the addition of
integrated optical devices on the chip can enhance its capability through
single atom detection and controlled photon production. Finally, we review the
status of integrated microcavities that have recently been demonstrated at our
Centre and discuss their prospects for future development.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, proceedings of the ICOLS07 conferenc
Observing Coherence Effects in an Overdamped Quantum System
It is usually considered that the spectrum of an optical cavity coupled to an
atomic medium does not exhibit a normal-mode splitting unless the system
satisfies the strong coupling condition, meaning the Rabi frequency of the
coherent coupling exceeds the decay rates of atom and cavity excitations. Here
we show that this need not be the case, but depends on the way in which the
coupled system is probed. Measurements of the reflection of a probe laser from
the input mirror of an overdamped cavity reveal an avoided crossing in the
spectrum which is not observed when driving the atoms directly and measuring
the Purcell-enhanced cavity emission. We understand these observations by
noting a formal correspondence with electromagnetically-induced transparency of
a three-level atom in free space, where our cavity acts as the absorbing medium
and the coupled atoms play the role of the control field
Atom detection and photon production in a scalable, open, optical microcavity
A microfabricated Fabry-Perot optical resonator has been used for atom
detection and photon production with less than 1 atom on average in the cavity
mode. Our cavity design combines the intrinsic scalability of microfabrication
processes with direct coupling of the cavity field to single-mode optical
waveguides or fibers. The presence of the atom is seen through changes in both
the intensity and the noise characteristics of probe light reflected from the
cavity input mirror. An excitation laser passing transversely through the
cavity triggers photon emission into the cavity mode and hence into the
single-mode fiber. These are first steps towards building an optical
microcavity network on an atom chip for applications in quantum information
processing.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. A typographical error in the published paper has
been corrected (equation of the corrected normalized variance, page 3, 2nd
paragraph
Directional bistability and nonreciprocal lasing with cold atoms in a ring cavity
We demonstrate lasing into counter-propagating modes of a ring cavity using a
gas of cold atoms as a gain medium. The laser operates under the usual
conditions of magneto-optical trapping with no additional fields. We
characterize the threshold behavior of the laser and measure the second-order
optical coherence. The laser emission exhibits directional bistability,
switching randomly between clockwise and counter-clockwise modes, and a
tuneable nonreciprocity is observed as the atoms are displaced along the cavity
axis.Comment: Authors' version, with supplemental material included. Published in
PRL at https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.16360
Fermi-Bose quantum degenerate ^40 K - ^87 Rb mixture with attractive interaction
We report on the achievement of simultaneous quantum degeneracy in a mixed
gas of fermionic ^40 K and bosonic ^87 Rb. Potassium is cooled to 0.3 times the
Fermi temperature by means of an efficient thermalization with evaporatively
cooled rubidium. Direct measurement of the collisional cross-section confirms a
large interspecies attraction. This interaction is shown to affect the
expansion of the Bose-Einstein condensate released form the magnetic trap,
where it is immersed in the Fermi sea.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, replaced one figure plus some change
Two-species magneto-optical trap with 40K and 87Rb
We trap and cool a gas composed of 40K and 87Rb, using a two-species
magneto-optical trap (MOT). This trap represents the first step towards cooling
the Bose-Fermi mixture to quantum degeneracy. Laser light for the MOT is
derived from laser diodes and amplified with a single high power semiconductor
amplifier chip. The four-color laser system is described, and the
single-species and two-species MOTs are characterized. Atom numbers of 1x10^7
40K and 2x10^9 87Rb are trapped in the two-species MOT. Observation of trap
loss due to collisions between species is presented and future prospects for
the experiment are discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures; accepted for publication in Physical Review
Two-species mixture of quantum degenerate Bose and Fermi gases
We have produced a macroscopic quantum system in which a Li-6 Fermi sea
coexists with a large and stable Na-23 Bose-Einstein condensate. This was
accomplished using inter-species sympathetic cooling of fermionic Li-6 in a
thermal bath of bosonic Na-23
Collective excitations of a trapped boson-fermion mixture across demixing
We calculate the spectrum of low-lying collective excitations in a mesoscopic
cloud formed by a Bose-Einstein condensate and a spin-polarized Fermi gas as a
function of the boson-fermion repulsions. The cloud is under isotropic harmonic
confinement and its dynamics is treated in the collisional regime by using the
equations of generalized hydrodynamics with inclusion of surface effects. For
large numbers of bosons we find that, as the cloud moves towards spatial
separation (demixing) with increasing boson-fermion coupling, the frequencies
of a set of collective modes show a softening followed by a sharp upturn. This
behavior permits a clear identification of the quantum phase transition. We
propose a physical interpretation for the dynamical transition point in a
confined mixture, leading to a simple analytical expression for its location.Comment: revtex4, 9 pages, 8 postscript file
Collective excitations in trapped boson-fermion mixtures: from demixing to collapse
We calculate the spectrum of low-lying collective excitations in a gaseous
cloud formed by a Bose-Einstein condensate and a spin-polarized Fermi gas over
a range of the boson-fermion coupling strength extending from strongly
repulsive to strongly attractive. Increasing boson-fermion repulsions drive the
system towards spatial separation of its components (``demixing''), whereas
boson-fermion attractions drive it towards implosion (``collapse''). The
dynamics of the system is treated in the experimentally relevant collisionless
regime by means of a Random-Phase approximation and the behavior of a
mesoscopic cloud under isotropic harmonic confinement is contrasted with that
of a macroscopic mixture at given average particle densities. In the latter
case the locations of both the demixing and the collapse phase transitions are
sharply defined by the same stability condition, which is determined by the
softening of an eigenmode of either fermionic or bosonic origin. In contrast,
the transitions to either demixing or collapse in a mesoscopic cloud at fixed
confinement and particle numbers are spread out over a range of boson-fermion
coupling strength, and some initial decrease of the frequencies of a set of
collective modes is followed by hardening as evidenced by blue shifts of most
eigenmodes. The spectral hardening can serve as a signal of the impending
transition and is most evident when the number of bosons in the cloud is
relatively large. We propose physical interpretations for these dynamical
behaviors with the help of suitably defined partial compressibilities for the
gaseous cloud under confinement.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, revtex
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