Spinor Bose-Einstein-condensate phase-sensitive amplifier for SU(1,1) interferometry

The SU(1,1) interferometer was originally conceived as a Mach-Zehnder interferometer with the beam splitters replaced by parametric amplifiers. The parametric amplifiers produce states with correlations that result in enhanced phase sensitivity. F=1 spinor Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) can serve as the parametric amplifiers for an atomic version of such an interferometer by collisionally producing entangled pairs of |F=1,m=±1) atoms. We simulate the effect of single- and double-sided seeding of the inputs to the amplifier using the truncated-Wigner approximation. We find that single-sided seeding degrades the performance of the interferometer exactly at the phase the unseeded interferometer should operate the best. Double-sided seeding results in a phase-sensitive amplifier, where the maximal sensitivity is a function of the phase relationship between the input states of the amplifier. In both single- and double-sided seeding we find there exists an optimal phase shift that achieves sensitivity beyond the standard quantum limit. Experimentally, we demonstrate a spinor phase-sensitive amplifier using a BEC of Na23 in an optical dipole trap. This configuration could be used as an input to such an interferometer. We are able to control the initial phase of the double-seeded amplifier and demonstrate sensitivity to initial population fractions as small as 0.1%

Experimental and numerical exploration of intrinsic localized modes in an atomic lattice

This review focuses attention on the experimental studies of intrinsic localized modes (ILMs) produced in driven atomic lattices. Production methods involve the application of modulational instability under carefully controlled conditions. One experimental approach is to drive the atomic lattice far from equilibrium to produce ILMs, the second is to apply a driver of only modest strength but nearby in frequency to a plane wave mode so that a slow transformation from large amplitude standing waves to ILMs takes place. Since, in either case, the number of ILMs produced is small, the experimental observation tool appropriate for this task is four-wave mixing. This nonlinear detection technique makes use of the nonlinearity associated with an ILM to enhance its signal over that produced by the more numerous, but linear, spin waves. The final topic deals with numerical simulations of a nonlinear nanoscale atomic lattice where the new feature is running ILMs