Mesoscopic ensembles of polar bosons in triple-well potentials

Mesoscopic dipolar Bose gases in triple-well potentials offer a minimal system for the analysis of the long-range character of the dipole-dipole interactions. We show that this long-range character may be clearly revealed by a variety of possible ground-state phases. In addition, an appropriate control of short-range and dipolar interactions may lead to novel scenarios for the dynamics of atoms and polar molecules in lattices, including the dynamical creation of mesoscopic Schr\"odinger cats, which may be employed as a source of highly-nonclassical states for Heisenberg-limited interferometry.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. Identical to the published version, including supplemental material (4 pages, 6 figures)

Strongly Correlated States of Ultracold Rotating Dipolar Fermi Gases

We study strongly correlated ground and excited states of rotating quasi-2D Fermi gases constituted of a small number of dipole-dipole interacting particles with dipole moments polarized perpendicular to the plane of motion. As the number of atoms grows, the system enters {\it an intermediate regime}, where ground states are subject to a competition between distinct bulk-edge configurations. This effect obscures their description in terms of composite fermions and leads to the appearance of novel composite fermion quasi-hole states. In the presence of dipolar interactions, the principal Laughlin state at filling $\nu=1/3$ exhibits a substantial energy gap for neutral (total angular momentum conserving) excitations, and is well-described as an incompressible Fermi liquid. Instead, at lower fillings, the ground state structure favors crystalline order.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, paper presented at DPG Meeting 2006, as well as Fritz Haber Institute Colloquiu

Discrete-step evaporation of an atomic beam

We present a theoretical analysis of the evaporative cooling of a magnetically guided atomic beam by means of discrete radio-frequency antennas. First we derive the changes in flux and temperature, as well as in collision rate and phase-space density, for a single evaporation step. Next we show how the occurrence of collisions during the propagation between two successive antennas can be probed. Finally, we discuss the optimization of the evaporation ramp with several antennas to reach quantum degeneracy. We estimate the number of antennas required to increase the phase-space density by several orders of magnitude. We find that at least 30 antennas are needed to gain a factor $10^8$ in phase-space density.Comment: Submitted to Eur. Phys. J.

Low-energy resonances and bound states of aligned bosonic and fermionic dipoles

The low-energy scattering properties of two aligned identical bosonic and identical fermionic dipoles are analyzed. Generalized scattering lengths are determined as functions of the dipole moment and the scattering energy. Near resonance, where a new bound state is being pulled in, all non-vanishing generalized scattering lengths diverge, with the $a_{00}$ and $a_{11}$ scattering lengths being dominant for identical bosons and identical fermions, respectively, near both broad and narrow resonances. Implications for the energy spectrum and the eigenfunctions of trapped two-dipole systems and for pseudo-potential treatments are discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Transport of Atom Packets in a Train of Ioffe-Pritchard Traps

We demonstrate transport and evaporative cooling of several atomic clouds in a chain of magnetic Ioffe-Pritchard traps moving at a low speed ($<1$~m/s). The trapping scheme relies on the use of a magnetic guide for transverse confinement and of magnets fixed on a conveyor belt for longitudinal trapping. This experiment introduces a new approach for parallelizing the production of Bose-Einstein condensates as well as for the realization of a continuous atom laser