814 research outputs found
Reexamining Black-Body Shifts for Hydrogenlike Ions
We investigate black-body induced energy shifts for low-lying levels of
atomic systems, with a special emphasis on transitions used in current and
planned high-precision experiments on atomic hydrogen and ionized helium.
Fine-structure and Lamb-shift induced black-body shifts are found to increase
with the square of the nuclear charge number, whereas black-body shifts due to
virtual transitions decrease with increasing nuclear charge as the fourth power
of the nuclear charge. We also investigate the decay width acquired by the
ground state of atomic hydrogen, due to interaction with black-body photons.
The corresponding width is due to an instability against excitation to higher
excited atomic levels, and due to black-body induced ionization. These effects
limit the lifetime of even the most fundamental, a priori absolutely stable,
"asymptotic" state of atomic theory, namely the ground state of atomic
hydrogen.Comment: 11 pages; LaTe
Complementarity and Young's interference fringes from two atoms
The interference pattern of the resonance fluorescence from a J=1/2 to J=1/2
transition of two identical atoms confined in a three-dimensional harmonic
potential is calculated. Thermal motion of the atoms is included. Agreement is
obtained with experiments [Eichmann et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 70, 2359 (1993)].
Contrary to some theoretical predictions, but in agreement with the present
calculations, a fringe visibility greater than 50% can be observed with
polarization-selective detection. The dependence of the fringe visibility on
polarization has a simple interpretation, based on whether or not it is
possible in principle to determine which atom emitted the photon.Comment: 12 pages, including 7 EPS figures, RevTex. Submitted to Phys. Rev.
Quantum information processing with trapped ions
Experiments directed towards the development of a quantum computer based on
trapped atomic ions are described briefly. We discuss the implementation of
single qubit operations and gates between qubits. A geometric phase gate
between two ion qubits is described. Limitations of the trapped-ion method such
as those caused by Stark shifts and spontaneous emission are addressed.
Finally, we describe a strategy to realize a large-scale device.Comment: Article submitted by D. J. Wineland ([email protected])
for proceeding of the Discussion Meeting on Practical Realisations of Quantum
Information Processing, held at the Royal Society, Nov. 13,14, 200
Absorption-free optical control of spin systems:the quantum Zeno effect in optical pumping
We show that atomic spin motion can be controlled by circularly polarized
light without light absorption in the strong pumping limit. In this limit, the
pumping light, which drives the empty spin state, destroys the Zeeman coherence
effectively and freezes the coherent transition via the quantum Zeno effect. It
is verified experimentally that the amount of light absorption decreases
asymptotically to zero as the incident light intensity is increased.Comment: 4 pages with 4 figure
Cooperative fluorescence effects for dipole-dipole interacting systems with experimentally relevant level configurations
The mutual dipole-dipole interaction of atoms in a trap can affect their
fluorescence. Extremely large effects were reported for double jumps between
different intensity periods in experiments with two and three Ba^+ ions for
distances in the range of about ten wave lengths of the strong transition while
no effects were observed for Hg^+ at 15 wave lengths. In this theoretical paper
we study this question for configurations with three and four levels which
model those of Hg^+ and Ba^+, respectively. For two systems in the Hg^+
configuration we find cooperative effects of up to 30% for distances around one
or two wave lengths, about 5% around ten wave lengths, and, for larger
distances in agreement with experiments, practically none. This is similar for
two V systems. However, for two four-level configurations, which model two Ba^+
ions, cooperative effects are practically absent, and this latter result is at
odds with the experimental findings for Ba^+.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, RevTeX4, to be published in Phys. Rev.
Testing the stability of fundamental constants with the 199Hg+ single-ion optical clock
Over a two-year duration, we have compared the frequency of the 199Hg+ 5d106s
2S 1/2 (F=0) 5d9 6s2 2D 5/2 (F=2) electric-quadrupole transition at 282 nm
with the frequency of the ground-state hyperfine splitting in neutral 133Cs.
These measurements show that any fractional time variation of the ratio
nu(Cs)/nu(Hg) between the two frequencies is smaller than +/- 7 10^-15 / yr (1
sigma uncertainty). According to recent atomic structure calculations, this
sets an upper limit to a possible fractional time variation of g(Cs) m_e / m_p
alpha^6.0 at the same level.Comment: 4 pages with 3 figures. RevTeX 4, Submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
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