386 research outputs found
Bistability in Feshbach Resonance
A coupled atom-molecule condensate with an intraspecies Feshbach resonance is
employed to explore matter wave bistability both in the presence and in the
absence of a unidirectional optical ring cavity. In particular, a set of
conditions are derived that allow the threshold for bistability, due both to
two-body s-wave scatterings and to cavity-mediated two-body interactions, to be
determined analytically. The latter bistability is found to support, not only
transitions between a mixed (atom-molecule) state and a pure molecular state as
in the former bistability, but also transitions between two distinct mixed
states.Comment: 6 pages + 3 figures; To appear in Jounal of Modern Optics, Special
Issue - Festschrift in Honor of Lorenzo Narducc
Theory of Photon Blockade by an Optical Cavity with One Trapped Atom
In our recent paper [1], we reported observations of photon blockade by one
atom strongly coupled to an optical cavity. In support of these measurements,
here we provide an expanded discussion of the general phenomenology of photon
blockade as well as of the theoretical model and results that were presented in
Ref. [1]. We describe the general condition for photon blockade in terms of the
transmission coefficients for photon number states. For the atom-cavity system
of Ref. [1], we present the model Hamiltonian and examine the relationship of
the eigenvalues to the predicted intensity correlation function. We explore the
effect of different driving mechanisms on the photon statistics. We also
present additional corrections to the model to describe cavity birefringence
and ac-Stark shifts. [1] K. M. Birnbaum, A. Boca, R. Miller, A. D. Boozer, T.
E. Northup, and H. J. Kimble, Nature 436, 87 (2005).Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure
Observation of squeezed light from one atom excited with two photons
Single quantum emitters like atoms are well-known as non-classical light
sources which can produce photons one by one at given times, with reduced
intensity noise. However, the light field emitted by a single atom can exhibit
much richer dynamics. A prominent example is the predicted ability for a single
atom to produce quadrature-squeezed light, with sub-shot-noise amplitude or
phase fluctuations. It has long been foreseen, though, that such squeezing
would be "at least an order of magnitude more difficult" to observe than the
emission of single photons. Squeezed beams have been generated using
macroscopic and mesoscopic media down to a few tens of atoms, but despite
experimental efforts, single-atom squeezing has so far escaped observation.
Here we generate squeezed light with a single atom in a high-finesse optical
resonator. The strong coupling of the atom to the cavity field induces a
genuine quantum mechanical nonlinearity, several orders of magnitude larger
than for usual macroscopic media. This produces observable quadrature squeezing
with an excitation beam containing on average only two photons per system
lifetime. In sharp contrast to the emission of single photons, the squeezed
light stems from the quantum coherence of photon pairs emitted from the system.
The ability of a single atom to induce strong coherent interactions between
propagating photons opens up new perspectives for photonic quantum logic with
single emittersComment: Main paper (4 pages, 3 figures) + Supplementary information (5 pages,
2 figures). Revised versio
Coherent optical wavelength conversion via cavity-optomechanics
We theoretically propose and experimentally demonstrate coherent wavelength
conversion of optical photons using photon-phonon translation in a
cavity-optomechanical system. For an engineered silicon optomechanical crystal
nanocavity supporting a 4 GHz localized phonon mode, optical signals in a 1.5
MHz bandwidth are coherently converted over a 11.2 THz frequency span between
one cavity mode at wavelength 1460 nm and a second cavity mode at 1545 nm with
a 93% internal (2% external) peak efficiency. The thermal and quantum limiting
noise involved in the conversion process is also analyzed, and in terms of an
equivalent photon number signal level are found to correspond to an internal
noise level of only 6 and 4x10-3 quanta, respectively.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, appendi
Interfacing External Quantum Devices to a Universal Quantum Computer
We present a scheme to use external quantum devices using the universal quantum computer previously constructed. We thereby show how the universal quantum computer can utilize networked quantum information resources to carry out local computations. Such information may come from specialized quantum devices or even from remote universal quantum computers. We show how to accomplish this by devising universal quantum computer programs that implement well known oracle based quantum algorithms, namely the Deutsch, Deutsch-Jozsa, and the Grover algorithms using external black-box quantum oracle devices. In the process, we demonstrate a method to map existing quantum algorithms onto the universal quantum computer
Linear and nonlinear optical spectroscopy of a strongly-coupled microdisk-quantum dot system
A fiber taper waveguide is used to perform direct optical spectroscopy of a
microdisk-quantum-dot system, exciting the system through the photonic (light)
channel rather than the excitonic (matter) channel. Strong coupling, the regime
of coherent quantum interactions, is demonstrated through observation of vacuum
Rabi splitting in the transmitted and reflected signals from the cavity. The
fiber coupling method also allows the examination of the system's steady-state
nonlinear properties, where saturation of the cavity-QD response is observed
for less than one intracavity photon.Comment: adjusted references, added minor clarification
Efficient and long-lived quantum memory with cold atoms inside a ring cavity
Quantum memories are regarded as one of the fundamental building blocks of
linear-optical quantum computation and long-distance quantum communication. A
long standing goal to realize scalable quantum information processing is to
build a long-lived and efficient quantum memory. There have been significant
efforts distributed towards this goal. However, either efficient but
short-lived or long-lived but inefficient quantum memories have been
demonstrated so far. Here we report a high-performance quantum memory in which
long lifetime and high retrieval efficiency meet for the first time. By placing
a ring cavity around an atomic ensemble, employing a pair of clock states,
creating a long-wavelength spin wave, and arranging the setup in the
gravitational direction, we realize a quantum memory with an intrinsic spin
wave to photon conversion efficiency of 73(2)% together with a storage lifetime
of 3.2(1) ms. This realization provides an essential tool towards scalable
linear-optical quantum information processing.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
Entanglement of spin waves among four quantum memories
Quantum networks are composed of quantum nodes that interact coherently by
way of quantum channels and open a broad frontier of scientific opportunities.
For example, a quantum network can serve as a `web' for connecting quantum
processors for computation and communication, as well as a `simulator' for
enabling investigations of quantum critical phenomena arising from interactions
among the nodes mediated by the channels. The physical realization of quantum
networks generically requires dynamical systems capable of generating and
storing entangled states among multiple quantum memories, and of efficiently
transferring stored entanglement into quantum channels for distribution across
the network. While such capabilities have been demonstrated for diverse
bipartite systems (i.e., N=2 quantum systems), entangled states with N > 2 have
heretofore not been achieved for quantum interconnects that coherently `clock'
multipartite entanglement stored in quantum memories to quantum channels. Here,
we demonstrate high-fidelity measurement-induced entanglement stored in four
atomic memories; user-controlled, coherent transfer of atomic entanglement to
four photonic quantum channels; and the characterization of the full
quadripartite entanglement by way of quantum uncertainty relations. Our work
thereby provides an important tool for the distribution of multipartite
entanglement across quantum networks.Comment: 4 figure
Strong Interactions of Single Atoms and Photons near a Dielectric Boundary
Modern research in optical physics has achieved quantum control of strong
interactions between a single atom and one photon within the setting of cavity
quantum electrodynamics (cQED). However, to move beyond current
proof-of-principle experiments involving one or two conventional optical
cavities to more complex scalable systems that employ N >> 1 microscopic
resonators requires the localization of individual atoms on distance scales <
100 nm from a resonator's surface. In this regime an atom can be strongly
coupled to a single intracavity photon while at the same time experiencing
significant radiative interactions with the dielectric boundaries of the
resonator. Here, we report an initial step into this new regime of cQED by way
of real-time detection and high-bandwidth feedback to select and monitor single
Cesium atoms localized ~100 nm from the surface of a micro-toroidal optical
resonator. We employ strong radiative interactions of atom and cavity field to
probe atomic motion through the evanescent field of the resonator. Direct
temporal and spectral measurements reveal both the significant role of
Casimir-Polder attraction and the manifestly quantum nature of the atom-cavity
dynamics. Our work sets the stage for trapping atoms near micro- and
nano-scopic optical resonators for applications in quantum information science,
including the creation of scalable quantum networks composed of many
atom-cavity systems that coherently interact via coherent exchanges of single
photons.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, Supplemental Information included as ancillary
fil
Cavity QED with a Bose-Einstein condensate
Cavity quantum electrodynamics (cavity QED) describes the coherent
interaction between matter and an electromagnetic field confined within a
resonator structure, and is providing a useful platform for developing concepts
in quantum information processing. By using high-quality resonators, a strong
coupling regime can be reached experimentally in which atoms coherently
exchange a photon with a single light-field mode many times before dissipation
sets in. This has led to fundamental studies with both microwave and optical
resonators. To meet the challenges posed by quantum state engineering and
quantum information processing, recent experiments have focused on laser
cooling and trapping of atoms inside an optical cavity. However, the tremendous
degree of control over atomic gases achieved with Bose-Einstein condensation
has so far not been used for cavity QED. Here we achieve the strong coupling of
a Bose-Einstein condensate to the quantized field of an ultrahigh-finesse
optical cavity and present a measurement of its eigenenergy spectrum. This is a
conceptually new regime of cavity QED, in which all atoms occupy a single mode
of a matter-wave field and couple identically to the light field, sharing a
single excitation. This opens possibilities ranging from quantum communication
to a wealth of new phenomena that can be expected in the many-body physics of
quantum gases with cavity-mediated interactions.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures; version accepted for publication in Nature;
updated Fig. 4; changed atom numbers due to new calibratio
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