6,537 research outputs found
Atomic quasi-Bragg diffraction in a magnetic field
We report on a new technique to split an atomic beam coherently with an
easily adjustable splitting angle. In our experiment metastable helium atoms in
the |{1s2s}^3S_1 M=1> state diffract from a polarization gradient light field
formed by counterpropagating \sigma^+ and \sigma^- polarized laser beams in the
presence of a homogeneous magnetic field. In the near-adiabatic regime, energy
conservation allows the resonant exchange between magnetic energy and kinetic
energy. As a consequence, symmetric diffraction of |M=0> or |M=-1> atoms in a
single order is achieved, where the order can be chosen freely by tuning the
magnetic field. We present experimental results up to 6th order diffraction (24
\hbar k momentum splitting, i.e., 2.21 m/s in transverse velocity) and present
a simple theoretical model that stresses the similarity with conventional Bragg
scattering. The resulting device constitutes a flexible, adjustable,
large-angle, three-way coherent atomic beam splitter with many potential
applications in atom optics and atom interferometry.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
Helium 2 3S - 2 1S metrology at 1557 nm
An experiment is proposed to excite the 'forbidden' 1s2s 3S1 - 1s2s 1S0
magnetic dipole (M1) transition at 1557 nm in a collimated and slow atomic beam
of metastable helium atoms. It is demonstrated that an excitation rate of 5000
/s can be realised with the beam of a 2W narrowband telecom fiber laser
intersecting the atomic beam perpendicularly. A Doppler-limited sub-MHz
spectroscopic linewidth is anticipated. Doppler-free excitation of 2% of
trapped and cooled atoms may be realised in a one-dimensional optical lattice
geometry, using the 2W laser both for trapping and spectroscopy. The very small
(8 Hz) natural linewidth of this transition presents an opportunity for
accurate tests of atomic structure calculations of the helium atom. A
measurement of the 3He - 4He isotope shift allows for accurate determination of
the difference in nuclear charge radius of both isotopes.Comment: accepted for publication in Europhysics Letter
Numerical simulations on the motion of atoms travelling through a standing-wave light field
The motion of metastable helium atoms travelling through a standing light
wave is investigated with a semi-classical numerical model. The results of a
calculation including the velocity dependence of the dipole force are compared
with those of the commonly used approach, which assumes a conservative dipole
force. The comparison is made for two atom guiding regimes that can be used for
the production of nanostructure arrays; a low power regime, where the atoms are
focused in a standing wave by the dipole force, and a higher power regime, in
which the atoms channel along the potential minima of the light field. In the
low power regime the differences between the two models are negligible and both
models show that, for lithography purposes, pattern widths of 150 nm can be
achieved. In the high power channelling regime the conservative force model,
predicting 100 nm features, is shown to break down. The model that incorporates
velocity dependence, resulting in a structure size of 40 nm, remains valid, as
demonstrated by a comparison with quantum Monte-Carlo wavefunction
calculations.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure
Atom lithography without laser cooling
Using direct-write atom lithography, Fe nanolines are deposited with a pitch
of 186 nm, a full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 50 nm, and a height of up to
6 nm. These values are achieved by relying on geometrical collimation of the
atomic beam, thus without using laser collimation techniques. This opens the
way for applying direct-write atom lithography to a wide variety of elements.Comment: 7 pages, 11 figure
Direct Observation of Sub-Poissonian Temporal Statistics in a Continuous Free Electron Beam with Sub-picosecond Resolution
Recently, interest in anti-bunched electron beams has surged because of their
potential in free electron quantum optics and electron microscopy. However, the
limited temporal resolution of available detectors poses a challenge in
observing the statistics of such beams. We propose a novel method to measure
the arrival time statistics of continuous electron beams with sub-ps
resolution. We developed a 2D streak camera based on the combination of
RF-cavity-based electron beam deflection and fast single electron imaging. We
observed Poissonian statistics within time bins from 100~ns to 1~ns and
increasingly pronounced sub-Poissonian statistics as the time bin decreases
from 2~ps to 340~fs
Casimir force between two ideal-conductor walls revisited
The high-temperature aspects of the Casimir force between two neutral
conducting walls are studied. The mathematical model of "inert" ideal-conductor
walls, considered in the original formulations of the Casimir effect, is based
on the universal properties of the electromagnetic radiation in the vacuum
between the conductors, with zero boundary conditions for the tangential
components of the electric field on the walls. This formulation seems to be in
agreement with experiments on metallic conductors at room temperature. At high
temperatures or large distances, at least, fluctuations of the electric field
are present in the bulk and at the surface of a particle system forming the
walls, even in the high-density limit: "living" ideal conductors. This makes
the enforcement of the inert boundary conditions inadequate. Within a hierarchy
of length scales, the high-temperature Casimir force is shown to be entirely
determined by the thermal fluctuations in the conducting walls, modelled
microscopically by classical Coulomb fluids in the Debye-H\"{u}ckel regime. The
semi-classical regime, in the framework of quantum electrodynamics, is studied
in the companion letter by P.R.Buenzli and Ph.A.Martin, cond-mat/0506363,
Europhys.Lett.72, 42 (2005).Comment: 7 pages.One reference updated. Domain of validity of eq.(11)
correcte
Correlations in a confined magnetized free-electron gas
Equilibrium quantum statistical methods are used to study the pair
correlation function for a magnetized free-electron gas in the presence of a
hard wall that is parallel to the field. With the help of a path-integral
technique and a Green function representation the modifications in the
correlation function caused by the wall are determined both for a
non-degenerate and for a completely degenerate gas. In the latter case the
asymptotic behaviour of the correlation function for large position differences
in the direction parallel to the wall and perpendicular to the field, is found
to change from Gaussian in the bulk to algebraic near the wall.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures, submitted to J. Phys. A: Math. Ge
Density-potential mappings in quantum dynamics
In a recent letter [Europhys. Lett. 95, 13001 (2011)] the question of whether
the density of a time-dependent quantum system determines its external
potential was reformulated as a fixed point problem. This idea was used to
generalize the existence and uniqueness theorems underlying time-dependent
density functional theory. In this work we extend this proof to allow for more
general norms and provide a numerical implementation of the fixed-point
iteration scheme. We focus on the one-dimensional case as it allows for a more
in-depth analysis using singular Sturm-Liouville theory and at the same time
provides an easy visualization of the numerical applications in space and time.
We give an explicit relation between the boundary conditions on the density and
the convergence properties of the fixed-point procedure via the spectral
properties of the associated Sturm-Liouville operator. We show precisely under
which conditions discrete and continuous spectra arise and give explicit
examples. These conditions are then used to show that in the most physically
relevant cases the fixed point procedure converges. This is further
demonstrated with an example.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures, 3 table
On the Coulomb-dipole transition in mesoscopic classical and quantum electron-hole bilayers
We study the Coulomb-to-dipole transition which occurs when the separation
of an electron-hole bilayer system is varied with respect to the
characteristic in-layer distances. An analysis of the classical ground state
configurations for harmonically confined clusters with reveals that
the energetically most favorable state can differ from that of two-dimensional
pure dipole or Coulomb systems. Performing a normal mode analysis for the N=19
cluster it is found that the lowest mode frequencies exhibit drastic changes
when is varied. Furthermore, we present quantum-mechanical ground states
for N=6, 10 and 12 spin-polarized electrons and holes. We compute the
single-particle energies and orbitals in self-consistent Hartree-Fock
approximation over a broad range of layer separations and coupling strengths
between the limits of the ideal Fermi gas and the Wigner crystal
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