387 research outputs found
The potential energy of a K Fermi gas in the BCS-BEC crossover
We present a measurement of the potential energy of an ultracold trapped gas
of K atoms in the BCS-BEC crossover and investigate the temperature
dependence of this energy at a wide Feshbach resonance, where the gas is in the
unitarity limit. In particular, we study the ratio of the potential energy in
the region of the unitarity limit to that of a non-interacting gas, and in the
T=0 limit we extract the universal many-body parameter . We find ; this value is consistent with previous measurements
using Li atoms and also with recent theory and Monte Carlo calculations.
This result demonstrates the universality of ultracold Fermi gases in the
strongly interacting regime
Cavity optomechanics with Si3N4 membranes at cryogenic temperatures
We describe a cryogenic cavity-optomechanical system that combines Si3N4
membranes with a mechanically-rigid Fabry-Perot cavity. The extremely high
quality-factor frequency products of the membranes allow us to cool a MHz
mechanical mode to a phonon occupation of less than 10, starting at a bath
temperature of 5 kelvin. We show that even at cold temperatures
thermally-occupied mechanical modes of the cavity elements can be a limitation,
and we discuss methods to reduce these effects sufficiently to achieve ground
state cooling. This promising new platform should have versatile uses for
hybrid devices and searches for radiation pressure shot noise.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figures, submitted to New Journal of Physic
From Cavity Electromechanics to Cavity Optomechanics
We present an overview of experimental work to embed high-Q mesoscopic
mechanical oscillators in microwave and optical cavities. Based upon recent
progress, the prospect for a broad field of "cavity quantum mechanics" is very
real. These systems introduce mesoscopic mechanical oscillators as a new
quantum resource and also inherently couple their motion to photons throughout
the electromagnetic spectrum.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, ICAP proceedings submissio
Modulation spectroscopy with ultracold fermions in an optical lattice
We propose an experimental setup of ultracold fermions in an optical lattice
to determine the pairing gap in a superfluid state and the spin ordering in a
Mott-insulating state. The idea is to apply a periodic modulation of the
lattice potential and to use the thereby induced double occupancy to probe the
system.
We show by full time-dependent calculation using the adaptive time dependent
density-matrix renormalization group method that the position of the peak in
the spectrum of the induced double occupancy gives the pairing energy in a
superfluid and the interaction energy in a Mott-insulator, respectively. In the
Mott-insulator we relate the spectral weight of the peak to the spin ordering
at finite temperature using perturbative calculations
Tensile strained membranes for cavity optomechanics
We investigate the optomechanical properties of tensile-strained ternary
InGaP nanomembranes grown on GaAs. This material system combines the benefits
of highly strained membranes based on stoichiometric silicon nitride, with the
unique properties of thin-film semiconductor single crystals, as previously
demonstrated with suspended GaAs. Here we employ lattice mismatch in epitaxial
growth to impart an intrinsic tensile strain to a monocrystalline thin film
(approximately 30 nm thick). These structures exhibit mechanical quality
factors of 2*10^6 or beyond at room temperature and 17 K for eigenfrequencies
up to 1 MHz, yielding Q*f products of 2*10^12 Hz for a tensile stress of ~170
MPa. Incorporating such membranes in a high finesse Fabry-Perot cavity, we
extract an upper limit to the total optical loss (including both absorption and
scatter) of 40 ppm at 1064 nm and room temperature. Further reductions of the
In content of this alloy will enable tensile stress levels of 1 GPa, with the
potential for a significant increase in the Q*f product, assuming no
deterioration in the mechanical loss at this composition and strain level. This
materials system is a promising candidate for the integration of strained
semiconductor membrane structures with low-loss semiconductor mirrors and for
realizing stacks of membranes for enhanced optomechanical coupling.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure
Signatures of Superfluidity in Dilute Fermi Gases near a Feshbach Resonance
We present a brief account of the most salient properties of vortices in
dilute atomic Fermi superfluids near a Feshbach resonance.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, and jltp.cls. Several typos and a couple of
inaccuracies have been correcte
Determination of the Fermion Pair Size in a Resonantly Interacting Superfluid
Fermionic superfluidity requires the formation of pairs. The actual size of
these fermion pairs varies by orders of magnitude from the femtometer scale in
neutron stars and nuclei to the micrometer range in conventional
superconductors. Many properties of the superfluid depend on the pair size
relative to the interparticle spacing. This is expressed in BCS-BEC crossover
theories, describing the crossover from a Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) type
superfluid of loosely bound and large Cooper pairs to Bose-Einstein
condensation (BEC) of tightly bound molecules. Such a crossover superfluid has
been realized in ultracold atomic gases where high temperature superfluidity
has been observed. The microscopic properties of the fermion pairs can be
probed with radio-frequency (rf) spectroscopy. Previous work was difficult to
interpret due to strong and not well understood final state interactions. Here
we realize a new superfluid spin mixture where such interactions have
negligible influence and present fermion-pair dissociation spectra that reveal
the underlying pairing correlations. This allows us to determine the
spectroscopic pair size in the resonantly interacting gas to be 2.6(2)/kF (kF
is the Fermi wave number). The pairs are therefore smaller than the
interparticle spacing and the smallest pairs observed in fermionic superfluids.
This finding highlights the importance of small fermion pairs for superfluidity
at high critical temperatures. We have also identified transitions from fermion
pairs into bound molecular states and into many-body bound states in the case
of strong final state interactions.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures; Figures updated; New Figures added; Updated
discussion of fit function
Momentum distribution of a trapped Fermi gas with large scattering length
Using a scattering length parametrization of the BCS-BEC crossover as well as
the local density approximation for the density profile, we calculate the
momentum distribution of a harmonically trapped atomic Fermi gas at zero
temperature. Various interaction regimes are considered, including the BCS
phase, the unitarity limit and the molecular regime. We show that the relevant
parameter which characterizes the crossover is given by the dimensionless
combination , where is the number of atoms, is the
scattering length and is the oscillator length. The width of the
momentum distribution is shown to depend in a crucial way on the value and sign
of this parameter. Our predictions can be relevant for experiments on ultracold
atomic Fermi gases near a Feshbach resonance.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures. Submitted to Phys. Rev. A. Added reference
Production of cold molecules via magnetically tunable Feshbach resonances
Magnetically tunable Feshbach resonances were employed to associate cold
diatomic molecules in a series of experiments involving both atomic Bose as
well as two spin component Fermi gases. This review illustrates theoretical
concepts of both the particular nature of the highly excited Feshbach molecules
produced and the techniques for their association from unbound atom pairs.
Coupled channels theory provides the rigorous formulation of the microscopic
physics of Feshbach resonances in cold gases. Concepts of dressed versus bare
energy states, universal properties of Feshbach molecules, as well as the
classification in terms of entrance- and closed-channel dominated resonances
are introduced on the basis of practical two-channel approaches. Their
significance is illustrated for several experimental observations, such as
binding energies and lifetimes with respect to collisional relaxation.
Molecular association and dissociation are discussed in the context of
techniques involving linear magnetic field sweeps in cold Bose and Fermi gases
as well as pulse sequences leading to Ramsey-type interference fringes. Their
descriptions in terms of Landau-Zener, two-level mean field as well as beyond
mean field approaches are reviewed in detail, including the associated ranges
of validity.Comment: 50 pages, 26 figures, to be published in Reviews of Modern Physics,
final version with updated reference
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