Atomic entanglement generation with reduced decoherence via four-wave mixing

In most proposals for the generation of entanglement in large ensembles of atoms via projective measurements, the interaction with the vacuum is responsible for both the generation of the signal that is detected and the spin depolarization or decoherence. In consequence, one has to usually work in a regime where the information aquisition via detection is sufficiently slow (weak measurement regime) such as not to strongly disturb the system. We propose here a four-wave mixing scheme where, owing to the pumping of the atomic system into a dark state, the polarization of the ensemble is not critically affected by spontaneous emission, thus allowing one to work in a strong measurement regime

A realization of a quasi-random walk for atoms in time-dependent optical potentials

We consider the time dependent dynamics of an atom in a two-color pumped cavity, longitudinally through a side mirror and transversally via direct driving of the atomic dipole. The beating of the two driving frequencies leads to a time dependent effective optical potential that forces the atom into a non-trivial motion, strongly resembling a discrete random walk behavior between lattice sites. We provide both numerical and analytical analysis of such a quasi-random walk behavior

Cooperative spin decoherence and population transfer

An ensemble of multilevel atoms is a good candidate for a quantum information storage device. The information is encrypted in the collective ground state atomic coherence, which, in the absence of external excitation, is decoupled from the vacuum and therefore decoherence free. However, in the process of manipulation of atoms with light pulses (writing, reading), one inadvertently introduces a coupling to the environment, i.e. a source of decoherence. The dissipation process is often treated as an independent process for each atom in the ensemble, an approach which fails at large atomic optical depths where cooperative effects must be taken into account. In this paper, the cooperative behavior of spin decoherence and population transfer for a system of two, driven multilevel-atoms is studied. Not surprisingly, an enhancement in the decoherence rate is found, when the atoms are separated by a distance that is small compared to an optical wavelength; however, it is found that this rate increases even further for somewhat larger separations for atoms aligned along the direction of the driving field's propagation vector. A treatment of the cooperative modification of optical pumping rates and an effect of polarization swapping between atoms is also discussed, lending additional insight into the origin of the collective decay

Optomechanics with molecules in a strongly pumped ring cavity

Cavity cooling of an atom works best on a cyclic optical transition in the strong coupling regime near resonance, where small cavity photon numbers suffice for trapping and cooling. Due to the absence of closed transitions a straightforward application to molecules fails: optical pumping can lead the particle into uncoupled states. An alternative operation in the far off-resonant regime generates only very slow cooling due to the reduced field-molecule coupling. We predict to overcome this by using a strongly driven ring-cavity operated in the sideband cooling regime. As in the optomechanical setups one takes advantage of a collectively enhanced field-molecule coupling strength using a large photon number. A linearized analytical treatment confirmed by full numerical quantum simulations predicts fast cooling despite the off-resonant small single molecule - single photon coupling. Even ground state cooling can be obtained by tuning the cavity field close to the Anti-stokes sideband for sufficiently high trapping frequency. Numerical simulations show quantum jumps of the molecules between the lowest two trapping levels, which can be be directly and continuously monitored via scattered light intensity detection

Partial optomechanical refrigeration via multi-mode cold-damping feedback

We provide a fully analytical treatment for the partial refrigeration of the thermal motion of a quantum mechanical resonator under the action of feedback. As opposed to standard cavity optomechanics where the aim is to isolate and cool a single mechanical mode, the aim here is to extract the thermal energy from many vibrational modes within a large frequency bandwidth. We consider a standard cold-damping technique, where homodyne readout of the cavity output field is fed into a feedback loop that provides a cooling action directly applied on the mechanical resonator. Analytical and numerical results predict that low final occupancies are achievable independent of the number of modes addressed by the feedback, as long as the cooling rate is smaller than the intermode frequency separation. For resonators exhibiting a few nearly degenerate pairs of modes, cooling is less efficient and a weak dependence on the number of modes is obtained. These scalings hint toward the design of frequency-resolved mechanical resonators, where efficient refrigeration is possible via simultaneous cold-damping feedback

Phase-noise induced limitations on cooling and coherent evolution in opto-mechanical systems

We present a detailed theoretical discussion of the effects of ubiquitous laser noise on cooling and the coherent dynamics in opto-mechanical systems. Phase fluctuations of the driving laser induce modulations of the linearized opto-mechanical coupling as well as a fluctuating force on the mirror due to variations of the mean cavity intensity. We first evaluate the influence of both effects on cavity cooling and find that for a small laser linewidth the dominant heating mechanism arises from intensity fluctuations. The resulting limit on the final occupation number scales linearly with the cavity intensity both under weak and strong coupling conditions. For the strong coupling regime, we also determine the effect of phase noise on the coherent transfer of single excitations between the cavity and the mechanical resonator and obtain a similar conclusion. Our results show that conditions for optical ground state cooling and coherent operations are experimentally feasible and thus laser phase noise does pose a challenge but not a stringent limitation for opto-mechanical systems

Emergence of atom-light-mirror entanglement inside an optical cavity

We propose a scheme for the realization of a hybrid, strongly quantum-correlated system formed of an atomic ensemble surrounded by a high-finesse optical cavity with a vibrating mirror. We show that the steady state of the system shows tripartite and bipartite continuous variable entanglement in experimentally accessible parameter regimes, which is robust against temperature

Excitation transport with collective radiative decay

We investigate a one-dimensional quantum emitter chain where transport of excitations and correlations takes place via nearest neighbor, dipole-dipole interactions. In the presence of collective radiative emission, we show that a phase imprinting wavepacket initialization procedure can lead to subradiant transport and can preserve quantum correlations. In the context of cavity mediated transport, where emitters are coupled to a common delocalized optical mode, we analyze the effect of frequency disorder and nonidentical photon-emitter couplings on excitation transport

Cavity-assisted squeezing of a mechanical oscillator

We investigate the creation of squeezed states of a vibrating membrane or a movable mirror in an opto-mechanical system. An optical cavity is driven by squeezed light and couples via radiation pressure to the membrane/mirror, effectively providing a squeezed heat-bath for the mechanical oscillator. Under the conditions of laser cooling to the ground state, we find an efficient transfer of squeezing with roughly 60% of light squeezing conveyed to the membrane/mirror (on a dB scale). We determine the requirements on the carrier frequency and the bandwidth of squeezed light. Beyond the conditions of ground state cooling, we predict mechanical squashing to be observable in current systems.Comment: 7.1 pages, 3 figures, submitted to PR

Atom-mirror cooling and entanglement using cavity Electromagnetically Induced Transparency

We investigate a hybrid optomechanical system comprised of a mechanical oscillator and an atomic 3-level ensemble within an optical cavity. We show that a suitably tailored cavity field response via Electromagnetically Induced Transparency (EIT) in the atomic medium allows for strong coupling of the mechanical mirror oscillations to the collective atomic ground-state spin. This facilitates ground-state cooling of the mirror motion, quantum state mapping and robust atom-mirror entanglement even for cavity widths larger than the mechanical oscillator frequency