12 research outputs found
Photoionisation loading of large Sr+ ion clouds with ultrafast pulses
This paper reports on photoionisation loading based on ultrafast pulses of
singly-ionised strontium ions in a linear Paul trap. We take advantage of an
autoionising resonance of Sr neutral atoms to form Sr+ by two-photon absorption
of femtosecond pulses at a wavelength of 431nm. We compare this technique to
electron-bombardment ionisation and observe several advantages of
photoionisation. It actually allows the loading of a pure Sr+ ion cloud in a
low radio-frequency voltage amplitude regime. In these conditions up to 4x10^4
laser-cooled Sr+ ions were trapped
Polariton Analysis of a Four-Level Atom Strongly Coupled to a Cavity Mode
We present a complete analytical solution for a single four-level atom
strongly coupled to a cavity field mode and driven by external coherent laser
fields. The four-level atomic system consists of a three-level subsystem in an
EIT configuration, plus an additional atomic level; this system has been
predicted to exhibit a photon blockade effect. The solution is presented in
terms of polaritons. An effective Hamiltonian obtained by this procedure is
analyzed from the viewpoint of an effective two-level system, and the dynamic
Stark splitting of dressed states is discussed. The fluorescence spectrum of
light exiting the cavity mode is analyzed and relevant transitions identified.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figure
Trapping atoms in the vacuum field of a cavity
The aim of this work is to find ways to trap an atom in a cavity. In contrast
to other approaches we propose a method where the cavity is basically in the
vacuum state and the atom in the ground state. The idea is to induce a spatial
dependent AC Stark shift by irradiating the atom with a weak laser field, so
that the atom experiences a trapping force. The main feature of our setup is
that dissipation can be strongly suppressed. We estimate the lifetime of the
atom as well as the trapping potential parameters and compare our estimations
with numerical simulations.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figure
Resonance fluorescence of a trapped three-level atom
We investigate theoretically the spectrum of resonance fluorescence of a
harmonically trapped atom, whose internal transitions are --shaped and
driven at two-photon resonance by a pair of lasers, which cool the
center--of--mass motion. For this configuration, photons are scattered only due
to the mechanical effects of the quantum interaction between light and atom. We
study the spectrum of emission in the final stage of laser--cooling, when the
atomic center-of-mass dynamics is quantum mechanical and the size of the wave
packet is much smaller than the laser wavelength (Lamb--Dicke limit). We use
the spectral decomposition of the Liouville operator of the master equation for
the atomic density matrix and apply second order perturbation theory. We find
that the spectrum of resonance fluorescence is composed by two narrow sidebands
-- the Stokes and anti-Stokes components of the scattered light -- while all
other signals are in general orders of magnitude smaller. For very low
temperatures, however, the Mollow--type inelastic component of the spectrum
becomes visible. This exhibits novel features which allow further insight into
the quantum dynamics of the system. We provide a physical model that interprets
our results and discuss how one can recover temperature and cooling rate of the
atom from the spectrum. The behaviour of the considered system is compared with
the resonance fluorescence of a trapped atom whose internal transition consists
of two-levels.Comment: 11 pages, 4 Figure
Cavity QED and quantum information processing with "hot" trapped atoms
We propose a method to implement cavity QED and quantum information
processing in high-Q cavities with a single trapped but non-localized atom. The
system is beyond the Lamb-Dick limit due to the atomic thermal motion. Our
method is based on adiabatic passages, which make the relevant dynamics
insensitive to the randomness of the atom position with an appropriate
interaction configuration. The validity of this method is demonstrated from
both approximate analytical calculations and exact numerical simulations. We
also discuss various applications of this method based on the current
experimental technology.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, Revte
Background-free detection of trapped ions
We demonstrate a Doppler cooling and detection scheme for ions with low-lying
D levels which almost entirely suppresses scattered laser light background,
while retaining a high fluorescence signal and efficient cooling. We cool a
single ion with a laser on the 2S1/2 to 2P1/2 transition as usual, but repump
via the 2P3/2 level. By filtering out light on the cooling transition and
detecting only the fluorescence from the 2P_3/2 to 2S1/2 decays, we suppress
the scattered laser light background count rate to 1 per second while
maintaining a signal of 29000 per second with moderate saturation of the
cooling transition. This scheme will be particularly useful for experiments
where ions are trapped in close proximity to surfaces, such as the trap
electrodes in microfabricated ion traps, which leads to high background scatter
from the cooling beam
Raman spectroscopy of a single ion coupled to a high-finesse cavity
We describe an ion-based cavity-QED system in which the internal dynamics of
an atom is coupled to the modes of an optical cavity by vacuum-stimulated Raman
transitions. We observe Raman spectra for different excitation polarizations
and find quantitative agreement with theoretical simulations. Residual motion
of the ion introduces motional sidebands in the Raman spectrum and leads to ion
delocalization. The system offers prospects for cavity-assisted
resolved-sideband ground-state cooling and coherent manipulation of ions and
photons.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure
Reservoir cross-over in entanglement dynamics
We study the effects of spontaneous emission on the entanglement dynamics of
two qubits interacting with a common Lorentzian structured reservoir. We assume
that the qubits are initially prepared in a Bell-like state. We focus on the
strong coupling regime and study the entanglement dynamics for different
regions of the spontaneous emission decay parameter. This investigation allows
us to explore the cross-over between common and independent reservoirs in
entanglement dynamics