Quantum Statistical Effects in Ultracold Gases of Metastable Helium

Hogervorst, W. [Promotor]Vassen, W. [Copromotor

Theory of correlations between ultra-cold bosons released from an optical lattice

In this paper we develop a theoretical description of the correlations between ultra-cold bosons after free expansion from confinement in an optical lattice. We consider the system evolution during expansion and give criteria for a far field regime. We develop expressions for first and second order two-point correlations based on a variety of commonly used approximations to the many-body state of the system including Bogoliubov, meanfield decoupling, and particle-hole perturbative solution about the perfect Mott-insulator state. Using these approaches we examine the effects of quantum depletion and pairing on the system correlations. Comparison with the directly calculated correlation functions is used to justify a Gaussian form of our theory from which we develop a general three-dimensional formalism for inhomogeneous lattice systems suitable for numerical calculations of realistic experimental regimes.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figures. To appear in Phys. Rev. A. (few minor changes made and typos fixed

A Degenerate Bose-Fermi Mixture of Metastable Atoms

We report the observation of simultaneous quantum degeneracy in a dilute gaseous Bose-Fermi mixture of metastable atoms. Sympathetic cooling of helium-3 (fermion) by helium-4 (boson), both in the lowest triplet state, allows us to produce ensembles containing more than 10^6 atoms of each isotope at temperatures below 1 micro-Kelvin, and achieve a fermionic degeneracy parameter of T/Tf=0.45. Due to their high internal energy, the detection of individual metastable atoms with sub-nanosecond time resolution is possible, permitting the study of bosonic and fermionic quantum gases with unprecedented precision. This may lead to metastable helium becoming the mainstay of quantum atom optics.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures submitted to PR

Nadelige gevolgen van een strafrechtelijke veroordeling: VOG- en DNA-regelgeving

Criminal Justice: Legitimacy, accountability, and effectivit

A Large Atom Number Metastable Helium Bose-Einstein Condensate

We have produced a Bose-Einstein condensate of metastable helium (4He*) containing over 1.5x10^7 atoms, which is a factor of 25 higher than previously achieved. The improved starting conditions for evaporative cooling are obtained by applying one-dimensional Doppler cooling inside a magnetic trap. The same technique is successfully used to cool the spin-polarized fermionic isotope (3He*), for which thermalizing collisions are highly suppressed. Our detection techniques include absorption imaging, time-of-flight measurements on a microchannel plate detector and ion counting to monitor the formation and decay of the condensate.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures (changed content

Producing and Detecting Correlated atoms

We discuss experiments to produce and detect atom correlations in a degenerate or nearly degenerate gas of neutral atoms. First we treat the atomic analog of the celebrated Hanbury Brown Twiss experiment, in which atom correlations result simply from interference effects without any atom interactions.We have performed this experiment for both bosons and fermions. Next we show how atom interactions produce correlated atoms using the atomic analog of spontaneous four-wavemixing. Finally, we briefly mention experiments on a one dimensional gas on an atom chip in which correlation effects due to both interference and interactions have been observed.Comment: to appear in conference proceedings "Atomic Physics 20

Probing quantum and thermal noise in an interacting many-body system

The probabilistic character of the measurement process is one of the most puzzling and fascinating aspects of quantum mechanics. In many-body systems quantum mechanical noise reveals non-local correlations of the underlying many-body states. Here, we provide a complete experimental analysis of the shot-to-shot variations of interference fringe contrast for pairs of independently created one-dimensional Bose condensates. Analyzing different system sizes we observe the crossover from thermal to quantum noise, reflected in a characteristic change in the distribution functions from Poissonian to Gumbel-type, in excellent agreement with theoretical predictions based on the Luttinger liquid formalism. We present the first experimental observation of quasi long-range order in one-dimensional atomic condensates, which is a hallmark of quantum fluctuations in one-dimensional systems. Furthermore, our experiments constitute the first analysis of the full distribution of quantum noise in an interacting many-body system

Quantum Non-Demolition Detection of Strongly Correlated Systems

Preparation, manipulation, and detection of strongly correlated states of quantum many body systems are among the most important goals and challenges of modern physics. Ultracold atoms offer an unprecedented playground for realization of these goals. Here we show how strongly correlated states of ultracold atoms can be detected in a quantum non-demolition scheme, that is, in the fundamentally least destructive way permitted by quantum mechanics. In our method, spatially resolved components of atomic spins couple to quantum polarization degrees of freedom of light. In this way quantum correlations of matter are faithfully mapped on those of light; the latter can then be efficiently measured using homodyne detection. We illustrate the power of such spatially resolved quantum noise limited polarization measurement by applying it to detect various standard and "exotic" types of antiferromagnetic order in lattice systems and by indicating the feasibility of detection of superfluid order in Fermi liquids.Comment: Published versio

Camparison of the Hanbury Brown-Twiss effect for bosons and fermions

Fifty years ago, Hanbury Brown and Twiss (HBT) discovered photon bunching in light emitted by a chaotic source, highlighting the importance of two-photon correlations and stimulating the development of modern quantum optics . The quantum interpretation of bunching relies upon the constructive interference between amplitudes involving two indistinguishable photons, and its additive character is intimately linked to the Bose nature of photons. Advances in atom cooling and detection have led to the observation and full characterisation of the atomic analogue of the HBT effect with bosonic atoms. By contrast, fermions should reveal an antibunching effect, i.e., a tendency to avoid each other. Antibunching of fermions is associated with destructive two-particle interference and is related to the Pauli principle forbidding more than one identical fermion to occupy the same quantum state. Here we report an experimental comparison of the fermion and the boson HBT effects realised in the same apparatus with two different isotopes of helium, 3He (a fermion) and 4He (a boson). Ordinary attractive or repulsive interactions between atoms are negligible, and the contrasting bunching and antibunching behaviours can be fully attributed to the different quantum statistics. Our result shows how atom-atom correlation measurements can be used not only for revealing details in the spatial density, or momentum correlations in an atomic ensemble, but also to directly observe phase effects linked to the quantum statistics in a many body system. It may thus find applications to study more exotic situations >.Comment: Nature 445, 402 (2007). V2 includes the supplementary informatio