435 research outputs found
Spontaneous absorption of an accelerated hydrogen atom near a conducting plane in vacuum
We study, in the multipolar coupling scheme, a uniformly accelerated
multilevel hydrogen atom in interaction with the quantum electromagnetic field
near a conducting boundary and separately calculate the contributions of the
vacuum fluctuation and radiation reaction to the rate of change of the mean
atomic energy. It is found that the perfect balance between the contributions
of vacuum fluctuations and radiation reaction that ensures the stability of
ground-state atoms is disturbed, making spontaneous transition of ground-state
atoms to excited states possible in vacuum with a conducting boundary. The
boundary-induced contribution is effectively a nonthermal correction, which
enhances or weakens the nonthermal effect already present in the unbounded
case, thus possibly making the effect easier to observe. An interesting feature
worth being noted is that the nonthermal corrections may vanish for atoms on
some particular trajectories.Comment: 19 pages, no figures, Revtex
Spontaneous excitation of an accelerated multilevel atom in dipole coupling to the derivative of a scalar field
We study the spontaneous excitation of an accelerated multilevel atom in
dipole coupling to the derivative of a massless quantum scalar field and
separately calculate the contributions of the vacuum fluctuation and radiation
reaction to the rate of change of the mean atomic energy of the atom. It is
found that, in contrast to the case where a monopole like interaction between
the atom and the field is assumed, there appear extra corrections proportional
to the acceleration squared, in addition to corrections which can be viewed as
a result of an ambient thermal bath at the Unruh temperature, as compared with
the inertial case, and the acceleration induced correction terms show
anisotropy with the contribution from longitudinal polarization being four
times that from the transverse polarization for isotropically polarized
accelerated atoms. Our results suggest that the effect of acceleration on the
rate of change of the mean atomic energy is dependent not only on the quantum
field to which the atom is coupled, but also on the type of the interaction
even if the same quantum scalar field is considered.Comment: 11 pages, no figure
Contributions of Vacuum and Plasmon Modes to the Force on a Small Sphere near a Plate
The force on a small sphere with a plasma model dielectric function and in
the presence of a perfectly reflecting plane is considered. The contribution of
both the vacuum modes of the quantized electromagnetic field and of plasmon
modes in the sphere are discussed. In the case that the plasmon modes are in
their ground state, quasi-oscillatory terms from the vacuum and plasmon parts
cancel one another, leading a monotonic attractive force. If the plasmon modes
are not in the ground state, the net force is quasi-oscillatory. In both cases,
the sphere behaves in the same way as does an atom in either its ground state
or an excited state.Comment: 7 pages, no figures, talk presented at "Quantum Fields under External
Conditions - 2005", Barcelona, Spain, September 200
Dynamic Kosterlitz-Thouless transition in 2D Bose mixtures of ultra-cold atoms
We propose a realistic experiment to demonstrate a dynamic
Kosterlitz-Thouless transition in ultra-cold atomic gases in two dimensions.
With a numerical implementation of the Truncated Wigner Approximation we
simulate the time evolution of several correlation functions, which can be
measured via matter wave interference. We demonstrate that the relaxational
dynamics is well-described by a real-time renormalization group approach, and
argue that these experiments can guide the development of a theoretical
framework for the understanding of critical dynamics.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure
Sub-Doppler laser cooling of potassium atoms
We investigate sub-Doppler laser cooling of bosonic potassium isotopes, whose
small hyperfine splitting has so far prevented cooling below the Doppler
temperature. We find instead that the combination of a dark optical molasses
scheme that naturally arises in this kind of systems and an adiabatic ramping
of the laser parameters allows to reach sub-Doppler temperatures for small
laser detunings. We demonstrate temperatures as low as 25(3)microK and
47(5)microK in high-density samples of the two isotopes 39K and 41K,
respectively. Our findings will find application to other atomic systems.Comment: 7 pages, 9 figure
The power spectrum of the circular noise
The circular noise is important in connection to Mach's principle, and also
as a possible probe of the Unruh effect. In this letter the power spectrum of
the detector following the Trocheries-Takeno motion in the Minkowski vacuum is
analytically obtained in the form of an infinite series. A mean distribution
function and corresponding energy density are obtained for this particular
detected noise. The analogous of a non constant temperature distribution is
obtained. And in the end, a brief discussion about the equilibrium
configuration is given.Comment: accepted for publication in GR
Evaporative Cooling of a Guided Rubidium Atomic Beam
We report on our recent progress in the manipulation and cooling of a
magnetically guided, high flux beam of atoms. Typically
atoms per second propagate in a magnetic guide providing a
transverse gradient of 800 G/cm, with a temperature K, at an
initial velocity of 90 cm/s. The atoms are subsequently slowed down to cm/s using an upward slope. The relatively high collision rate (5 s)
allows us to start forced evaporative cooling of the beam, leading to a
reduction of the beam temperature by a factor of ~4, and a ten-fold increase of
the on-axis phase-space density.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figure
Spin-orbit coupling and Berry phase with ultracold atoms in 2D optical lattices
We show how spin-orbit coupling and Berry phase can appear in two-dimensional
optical lattices by coupling atoms' internal degrees of freedom to radiation.
The Rashba Hamiltonian, a standard description of spin-orbit coupling for
two-dimensional electrons, is obtained for the atoms under certain
circumstances. We discuss the possibility of observing associated phenomena,
such as the anomalous Hall and spin Hall effects, with cold atoms in optical
lattices.Comment: 3 figure
Atomic density and temperature distributions in magneto-optical traps
A theoretical investigation into density, pressure, and temperature distributions in magneto-optical traps is presented. After a brief overview of the forces that arise from reradiation and absorption, a condition that the absorptive force be conservative is used to show that, if the temperature is uniform throughout the trap, any. density solutions to the force equations will not be physical. Further, consistent density solutions are unlikely to exist at all. In contrast, with a varying temperature reasonable solutions are demonstrated, with some restrictions. Doppler forces involved in ring-shaped trap structures are used to calculate orbit radii in racetrack geometry traps, and corrections to the present discrepancy between theoretical and experimental studies are discussed in the context of reradiation and diffusion
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