2,479 research outputs found
Storing images in warm atomic vapor
Reversible and coherent storage of light in atomic medium is a key-stone of
future quantum information applications. In this work, arbitrary
two-dimensional images are slowed and stored in warm atomic vapor for up to 30
s, utilizing electromagnetically induced transparency. Both the intensity
and the phase patterns of the optical field are maintained. The main limitation
on the storage resolution and duration is found to be the diffusion of atoms. A
techniqueanalogous to phase-shift lithography is employed to diminish the
effect of diffusion on the visibility of the reconstructed image
Measurement of Dicke Narrowing in Electromagnetically Induced Transparency
Dicke narrowing is a phenomena that dramatically reduces the Doppler width of
spectral lines, due to frequent velocity-changing collisions. A similar
phenomena occurs for electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) resonances,
and facilitates ultra-narrow spectral features in room-temperature vapor. We
directly measure the Dicke-like narrowing by studying EIT line-shapes as a
function of the angle between the pump and the probe beams. The measurements
are in good agreement with an analytic theory with no fit parameters. The
results show that Dicke narrowing can increase substantially the tolerance of
hot-vapor EIT to angular deviations. We demonstrate the importance of this
effect for applications such as imaging and spatial solitons using a
single-shot imaging experiment, and discuss the implications on the feasibility
of storing images in atomic vapor.Comment: Introduction revise
Topological stability of stored optical vortices
We report an experiment in which an optical vortex is stored in a vapor of Rb
atoms. Due to its 2\pi phase twist, this mode, also known as the Laguerre-Gauss
mode, is topologically stable and cannot unwind even under conditions of strong
diffusion. To supplement our finding, we stored a flat phase Gaussian beam with
a dark center. Contrary to the optical vortex, which stays stable for over 100
microseconds, the dark center in the retrieved flat-phased image was filled
with light at storage times as small as 10 microseconds. This experiment proves
that higher electromagnetic modes can be converted into atomic coherences, and
that modes with phase singularities are robust to decoherence effects such as
diffusion. This opens the possibility to more elaborate schemes for two
dimensional information storage in atomic vapors.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures v2: minor grammatical corrections v3: problem with
references fixed v4: minor clarifications added to the tex
Electromagnetically Induced Transparency and Light Storage in an Atomic Mott Insulator
We experimentally demonstrate electromagnetically induced transparency and
light storage with ultracold 87Rb atoms in a Mott insulating state in a three
dimensional optical lattice. We have observed light storage times of about 240
ms, to our knowledge the longest ever achieved in ultracold atomic samples.
Using the differential light shift caused by a spatially inhomogeneous far
detuned light field we imprint a "phase gradient" across the atomic sample,
resulting in controlled angular redirection of the retrieved light pulse.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Damping of bulk excitations over an elongated BEC - the role of radial modes
We report the measurement of Beliaev damping of bulk excitations in cigar
shaped Bose Einstein condensates of atomic vapor. By using post selection,
excitation line shapes of the total population are compared with those of the
undamped excitations. We find that the damping depends on the initial
excitation energy of the decaying quasi particle, as well as on the excitation
momentum. We model the condensate as an infinite cylinder and calculate the
damping rates of the different radial modes. The derived damping rates are in
good agreement with the experimentally measured ones. The damping rates
strongly depend on the destructive interference between pathways for damping,
due to the quantum many-body nature of both excitation and damping products.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Stochastic Mean-Field Theory for the Disordered Bose-Hubbard Model
We investigate the effect of diagonal disorder on bosons in an optical
lattice described by an Anderson-Hubbard model at zero temperature. It is known
that within Gutzwiller mean-field theory spatially resolved calculations suffer
particularly from finite system sizes in the disordered case, while arithmetic
averaging of the order parameter cannot describe the Bose glass phase for
finite hopping . Here we present and apply a new \emph{stochastic}
mean-field theory which captures localization due to disorder, includes
non-trivial dimensional effects beyond the mean-field scaling level and is
applicable in the thermodynamic limit. In contrast to fermionic systems, we
find the existence of a critical hopping strength, above which the system
remains superfluid for arbitrarily strong disorder.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure
Bose-Fermi mixtures in 1D optical superlattices
The zero temperature phase diagram of binary boson-fermion mixtures in
two-colour superlattices is investigated. The eigenvalue problem associated
with the Bose-Fermi-Hubbard Hamiltonian is solved using an exact numerical
diagonalization technique, supplemented by an adaptive basis truncation scheme.
The physically motivated basis truncation allows to access larger systems in a
fully controlled and very flexible framework. Several experimentally relevant
observables, such as the matter-wave interference pattern and the
condensatefraction, are investigated in order to explore the rich phase
diagram. At symmetric half filling a phase similar to the Mott-insulating phase
in a commensurate purely bosonic system is identified and an analogy to recent
experiments is pointed out. Furthermore a phase of complete localization of the
bosonic species generated by the repulsive boson-fermion interaction is
identified. These localized condensates are of a different nature than the
genuine Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figure
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