A Compact Source for Quantum Image Processing with Four-wave Mixing in Rubidium-85

We have built a compact light source for bright squeezed twin-beams at 795\,nm based on four-wave-mixing in atomic $^{85}$Rb vapor. With a total optical power of 400\,mW derived from a free running diode laser and a tapered amplifier to pump the four-wave-mixing process, we achieve 2.1\,dB intensity difference squeezing of the twin beams below the standard quantum limit, without accounting for losses. Squeezed twin beams generated by the type of source presented here could be used as reference for the precise calibration of photodetectors. Transferring the quantum correlations from the light to atoms in order to generate correlated atom beams is another interesting prospect. In this work we investigate the dispersion that is generated by the employed four-wave-mixing process with respect to bandwidth and dependence on probe detuning. We are currently using this squeezed light source to test the transfer of spatial information and quantum correlations through media of anomalous dispersion.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Opportunities for Electron Microscopy in Space Radiation Biology

Densely ionizing, particulate radiations in outer space are likely to cause to mammalian tissues biological damage that is particularly amenable to examination by the techniques of electron microscopy. This situation arises primarily from the fact that once the density of ionization along the particle track exceeds a certain value, small discrete lesions involving many adjacent cells may be caused in organized tissues. Tissue damage produced by ionization densities below the critical value also afford opportunities for electron microscopic evaluation, as is shown by the damage produced in optic and proximate tissues of the New Zealand white rabbit in terrestrial experiments. Late radiation sequelae in nondividing, or terminally differentiating, tissues, and in stem cell populations, are of special importance in these regards. It is probable that evaluations of the hazards posed to astronauts by galactic particulate radiations during prolonged missions in outer space will not be complete without adequate electron microscopic evaluation of the damage those radiations cause to organized tissues

Coulomb crystallization in expanding laser-cooled neutral plasmas

We present long-time simulations of expanding ultracold neutral plasmas, including a full treatment of the strongly coupled ion dynamics. Thereby, the relaxation dynamics of the expanding laser-cooled plasma is studied, taking into account elastic as well as inelastic collisions. It is demonstrated that, depending on the initial conditions, the ionic component of the plasma may exhibit short-range order or even a superimposed long-range order resulting in concentric ion shells. In contrast to ionic plasmas confined in traps, the shell structures are built up from the center of the plasma cloud rather than from the periphery

Light forces in ultracold photoassociation

We study the time-resolved photoassociation of ultracold sodium in an optical dipole trap. The photoassociation laser excites pairs of atoms to molecular states of large total angular momentum at high intensities (above 20 kW/cm$^{2}$). Such transitions are generally suppressed at ultracold temperatures by the centrifugal barriers for high partial waves. Time-resolved ionization measurements reveal that the atoms are accelerated by the dipole potential of the photoassociation beam. We change the collision energy by varying the potential depth, and observe a strong variation of the photoassociation rate. These results demonstrate the important role of light forces in cw photoassociation at high intensities.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

Trapping of Neutral Rubidium with a Macroscopic Three-Phase Electric Trap

We trap neutral ground-state rubidium atoms in a macroscopic trap based on purely electric fields. For this, three electrostatic field configurations are alternated in a periodic manner. The rubidium is precooled in a magneto-optical trap, transferred into a magnetic trap and then translated into the electric trap. The electric trap consists of six rod-shaped electrodes in cubic arrangement, giving ample optical access. Up to 10^5 atoms have been trapped with an initial temperature of around 20 microkelvin in the three-phase electric trap. The observations are in good agreement with detailed numerical simulations.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Quantum mutual information of an entangled state propagating through a fast-light medium

Although it is widely accepted that classical information cannot travel faster than the speed of light in vacuum, the behavior of quantum correlations and quantum information propagating through actively-pumped fast-light media has not been studied in detail. To investigate this behavior, we send one half of an entangled state of light through a gain-assisted fast-light medium and detect the remaining quantum correlations. We show that the quantum correlations can be advanced by a small fraction of the correlation time while the entanglement is preserved even in the presence of noise added by phase-insensitive gain. Additionally, although we observe an advance of the peak of the quantum mutual information between the modes, we find that the degradation of the mutual information due to the added noise appears to prevent an advancement of the leading edge. In contrast, we show that both the leading and trailing edges of the mutual information in a slow-light system can be significantly delayed

Instability Heating of Sympathetically-Cooled Ions in a Linear Paul Trap

Sympathetic laser cooling of ions stored within a linear-geometry, radio frequency, electric-quadrupole trap has been investigated using computational and theoretical techniques. The simulation, which allows 5 sample ions to interact with 35 laser-cooled atomic ions, revealed an instability heating mechanism, which can prevent ions below a certain critical mass from being sympathetically cooled. This critical mass can however be varied by changing the trapping field parameters thus allowing ions with a very large range of masses to be sympathetically cooled using a single ion species. A theoretical explanation of this instability heating mechanism is presented which predicts that the cooling-heating boundary in trapping parameter space is a line of constant $q_u$ (ion trap stability coefficient), a result supported by the computational results. The threshold value of $q_u$ depends on the masses of the interacting ions. A functional form of this dependence is given