156 research outputs found
Disorder Potentials near Lithographically Fabricated Atom Chips
We show that previously observed large disorder potentials in magnetic
microtraps for neutral atoms are reduced by about two orders of magnitude when
using atom chips with lithographically fabricated high quality gold layers.
Using one dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates, we probe the remaining
magnetic field variations at surface distances down to a few microns.
Measurements on a 100 um wide wire imply that residual variations of the
current flow result from local properties of the wire.Comment: submitted on September 24th, 200
Ultracold atoms in radio-frequency-dressed potentials beyond the rotating wave approximation
We study dressed Bose-Einstein condensates in an atom chip radio-frequency
trap. We show that in this system sufficiently strong dressing can be achieved
to cause the widely used rotating wave approximation (RWA) to break down. We
present a full calculation of the atom - field coupling which shows that the
non-RWA contributions quantitatively alter the shape of the emerging dressed
adiabatic potentials. The non-RWA contributions furthermore lead to additional
allowed transitions between dressed levels. We use RF spectroscopy of
Bose-Einstein condensates trapped in the dressed state potentials to directly
observe the transition from the RWA to the beyond-RWA regime.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
Manipulation of ultracold atoms in dressed adiabatic radio frequency potentials
We explore properties of atoms whose magnetic hyperfine sub-levels are
coupled by an external magnetic radio frequency (rf) field. We perform a
thorough theoretical analysis of this driven system and present a number of
systematic approximations which eventually give rise to dressed adiabatic radio
frequency potentials. The predictions of this analytical investigation are
compared to numerically exact results obtained by a wave packet propagation. We
outline the versatility and flexibility of this new class of potentials and
demonstrate their potential use to build atom optical elements such as
double-wells, interferometers and ringtraps. Moreover, we perform simulations
of interference experiments carried out in rf induced double-well potentials.
We discuss how the nature of the atom-field coupling mechanism gives rise to a
decrease of the interference contrast
Adiabatic radio frequency potentials for the coherent manipulation of matter waves
Adiabatic dressed state potentials are created when magnetic sub-states of
trapped atoms are coupled by a radio frequency field. We discuss their
theoretical foundations and point out fundamental advantages over potentials
purely based on static fields. The enhanced flexibility enables one to
implement numerous novel configurations, including double wells, Mach-Zehnder
and Sagnac interferometers which even allows for internal state-dependent atom
manipulation. These can be realized using simple and highly integrated wire
geometries on atom chips.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figure
Realization of an Excited, Strongly-Correlated Quantum Gas Phase
Ultracold atomic physics offers myriad possibilities to study strongly
correlated many-body systems in lower dimensions. Typically, only ground state
phases are accessible. Using a tunable quantum gas of bosonic cesium atoms, we
realize and control in one dimensional geometry a highly excited quantum phase
that is stabilized in the presence of attractive interactions by maintaining
and strengthening quantum correlations across a confinement-induced resonance.
We diagnose the crossover from repulsive to attractive interactions in terms of
the stiffness and the energy of the system. Our results open up the
experimental study of metastable excited many-body phases with strong
correlations and their dynamical properties
Non-equilibrium coherence dynamics in one-dimensional Bose gases
Low-dimensional systems are beautiful examples of many-body quantum physics.
For one-dimensional systems the Luttinger liquid approach provides insight into
universal properties. Much is known of the equilibrium state, both in the
weakly and strongly interacting regime. However, it remains a challenge to
probe the dynamics by which this equilibrium state is reached. Here we present
a direct experimental study of the coherence dynamics in both isolated and
coupled degenerate 1d Bose gases. Dynamic splitting is used to create two 1d
systems in a phase coherent state. The time evolution of the coherence is
revealed in local phase shifts of the subsequently observed interference
patterns. Completely isolated 1d Bose gases are observed to exhibit a universal
sub-exponential coherence decay in excellent agreement with recent predictions
by Burkov et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 200404 (2007)]. For two coupled 1d Bose
gases the coherence factor is observed to approach a non-zero equilibrium value
as predicted by a Bogoliubov approach. This coupled-system decay to finite
coherence is the matter wave equivalent of phase locking two lasers by
injection. The non-equilibrium dynamics of superfluids plays an important role
in a wide range of physical systems, such as superconductors, quantum-Hall
systems, superfluid Helium, and spin systems. Our experiments studying
coherence dynamics show that 1d Bose gases are ideally suited for investigating
this class of phenomena.Comment: to appear in natur
Ultracold chemical reactions of a single Rydberg atom in a dense gas
Within a dense environment (atoms/cm) at
ultracold temperatures (), a single atom excited to a
Rydberg state acts as a reaction center for surrounding neutral atoms. At these
temperatures almost all neutral atoms within the Rydberg orbit are bound to the
Rydberg core and interact with the Rydberg atom. We have studied the reaction
rate and products for Rb Rydberg states and we mainly observe a
state change of the Rydberg electron to a high orbital angular momentum ,
with the released energy being converted into kinetic energy of the Rydberg
atom. Unexpectedly, the measurements show a threshold behavior at for the inelastic collision time leading to increased lifetimes of the
Rydberg state independent of the densities investigated. Even at very high
densities (), the lifetime of a
Rydberg atom exceeds at compared to
at . In addition, a second observed reaction mechanism,
namely Rb molecule formation, was studied. Both reaction products are
equally probable for but the fraction of Rb created drops to below
10% for .Comment: 13 pages, 13 figure
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
- …