An Optically Plugged Quadrupole Trap for Bose-Einstein Condensates

We created sodium Bose-Einstein condensates in an optically plugged quadrupole magnetic trap (OPT). A focused, 532nm laser beam repelled atoms from the coil center where Majorana loss is significant. We produced condensates of up to $3 \times 10^7$ atoms, a factor of 60 improvement over previous work [1], a number comparable to the best all-magnetic traps, and transferred up to $9 \times 10^6$ atoms into a purely optical trap. Due to the tight axial confinement and azimuthal symmetry of the quadrupole coils, the OPT shows promise for creating Bose-Einstein condensates in a ring geometry

Synthetic magnetic fluxes on the honeycomb lattice

We devise experimental schemes able to mimic uniform and staggered magnetic fluxes acting on ultracold two-electron atoms, such as ytterbium atoms, propagating in a honeycomb lattice. The atoms are first trapped into two independent state-selective triangular lattices and are further exposed to a suitable configuration of resonant Raman laser beams. These beams induce hops between the two triangular lattices and make atoms move in a honeycomb lattice. Atoms traveling around each unit cell of this honeycomb lattice pick up a nonzero phase. In the uniform case, the artificial magnetic flux sustained by each cell can reach about two flux quanta, thereby realizing a cold atom analogue of the Harper model with its notorious Hofstadter's butterfly structure. Different condensed-matter phenomena such as the relativistic integer and fractional quantum Hall effects, as observed in graphene samples, could be targeted with this scheme.Comment: 12 pages, 14 figure

Enhanced Pauli blocking of light scattering in a trapped Fermi gas

Pauli blocking of spontaneous emission by a single excited-state atom has been predicted to be dramatic at low temperature when the Fermi energy $E_\mathrm{F}$ exceeds the recoil energy $E_\mathrm{R}$. The photon scattering rate of a ground-state Fermi gas can also be suppressed by occupation of the final states accessible to a recoiling atom, however suppression is diminished by scattering events near the Fermi edge. We analyze two new approaches to improve the visibility of Pauli blocking in a trapped Fermi gas. Focusing the incident light to excite preferentially the high-density region of the cloud can increase the blocking signature by 14%, and is most effective at intermediate temperature. Spontaneous Raman scattering between imbalanced internal states can be strongly suppressed at low temperature, and is completely blocked for a final-state $E_\mathrm{F} > 4 E_\mathrm{R}$ in the high imbalance limit.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures. v4: to appear in Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physic

Correlations and Pair Formation in a Repulsively Interacting Fermi Gas

A degenerate Fermi gas is rapidly quenched into the regime of strong effective repulsion near a Feshbach resonance. The spin fluctuations are monitored using speckle imaging and, contrary to several theoretical predictions, the samples remain in the paramagnetic phase for arbitrarily large scattering length. Over a wide range of interaction strengths a rapid decay into bound pairs is observed over times on the order of 10\hbar/E_F, preventing the study of equilibrium phases of strongly repulsive fermions. Our work suggests that a Fermi gas with strong short-range repulsive interactions does not undergo a ferromagnetic phase transition

Coherent Collisions between Bose-Einstein Condensates

We study the non-degenerate parametric amplifier for matter waves, implemented by colliding two Bose-Einstein condensates. The coherence of the amplified waves is shown by observing high contrast interference with a reference wave and by reversing the amplification process. Since our experiments also place limits on all known sources of decoherence, we infer that relative number squeezing is most likely present between the amplified modes. Finally, we suggest that reversal of the amplification process may be used to detect relative number squeezing without requiring single-particle detection.Comment: 4.2 pages, 4 figures, please take postscript version for best quality of picture

Optimized sympathetic cooling of atomic mixtures via fast adiabatic strategies

We discuss fast frictionless cooling techniques in the framework of sympathetic cooling of cold atomic mixtures. It is argued that optimal cooling of an atomic species - in which the deepest quantum degeneracy regime is achieved - may be obtained by means of sympathetic cooling with another species whose trapping frequency is dynamically changed to maintain constancy of the Lewis-Riesenfeld adiabatic invariant. Advantages and limitations of this cooling strategy are discussed, with particular regard to the possibility of cooling Fermi gases to a deeper degenerate regime.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Pauli blocking effects and Cooper triples in three-component Fermi gases

We investigate the effect of Pauli blocking on universal two- and three-body states in the medium. Their corresponding energies are extracted from the poles of two- and three-body in-medium scattering amplitudes. Compared to the vacuum, the binding of dimer and trimer states is reduced by the medium effects. In two-body scattering, the well-known physics of Cooper pairs is recovered. In the three-body sector, we find a new class of positive energy poles which can be interpreted as Cooper triples.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figures, discussion expanded, final versio

Coupled Breathing Oscillations of Two-Component Fermion Condensates in Deformed Traps

We investigate collective excitations coupled with monopole and quadrupole oscillations in two-component fermion condensates in deformed traps. The frequencies of monopole and dipole modes are calculated using Thomas-Fermi theory and the scaling approximation. When the trap is largely deformed, these collective motions are decoupled to the transverse and longitudinal breathing oscillation modes. As the trap approaches becoming spherical, however, they are coupled and show complicated behaviors.Comment: 18 pages and 8 figure