47 research outputs found
Conditions for anti-Zeno effect observation in free-space atomic radiative decay
Frequent measurements can modify the decay of an unstable quantum state with
respect to the free dynamics given by Fermi's golden rule. In a landmark
article, Nature 405, 546 (2000), Kofman and Kurizki concluded that in quantum
decay processes, acceleration of the decay by frequent measurements, called the
quantum anti-Zeno effect (AZE), appears to be ubiquitous, while its
counterpart, the quantum Zeno effect, is unattainable. However, up to now there
have been no experimental observations of the AZE for atomic radiative decay
(spontaneous emission) in free space. In this work, making use of analytical
results available for hydrogen-like atoms, we find that in free space, only
non-electric-dipolar transitions should present an observable AZE, revealing
that this effect is consequently much less ubiquitous than first predicted. We
then propose an experimental scheme for AZE observation, involving the electric
quadrupole transition between D 5/2 and S 1/2 in the heaviest alkali-earth ions
Ca + and Sr +. The proposed protocol is based on the STIRAP technique which
acts like a dephasing quasi-measurement
Ion transport in macroscopic RF linear traps
Efficient transport of cold atoms or ions is a subject of increasing concern
in many experimental applications reaching from quantum information processing
to frequency metrology. For the scalable quantum computer architectures based
on the shuttling of individual ions, different transport schemes have been
developed, which allow to move single atoms minimizing their energy gain. In
this article we discuss the experimental implementation of the transport of a
three-dimensional ion cloud in a macroscopic linear radiofrequency (RF) trap.
The present work is based on numerical simulations done by molecular dynamics
taking into account a realistic experimental environment. The deformation of
the trapping potential and the spatial extension of the cloud during transport
appears to be the major source of the ion energy gain. The efficiency of
transport in terms of transfer probability and ion number is also discussed
Metastable level lifetimes from electron-shelving measurements with ion clouds and single ions
The lifetime of the 3d^2D_5/2-level in singly-ionized calcium has been
measured by the electron-shelving technique on different samples of rf trapped
ions. The metastable state has been directly populated by exciting the
dipole-forbidden 4S_1/2 - 3D_5/2 transition. In ion clouds, the natural
lifetime of this metastable level has been measured to be (1095+-27) ms. For
the single-ion case, we determined a lifetime of (1152+-20) ms. The
1sigma-error bars at the 2%-level have different origins for the two kinds of
experiments: data fitting methods for lifetime measurements in an ion cloud and
control of experimental parameters for a single ion. De-shelving effects are
extensively discussed. The influence of differing approaches for the processing
of the single-ion quantum jump data on the lifetime values is shown. Comparison
with recent measurements shows excellent agreement when evaluated from a given
method
Crystallization of ion clouds in octupole traps: structural transitions, core melting, and scaling laws
International audienceThe stable structures and melting properties of ion clouds in isotropic octupole traps are investigated using a combination of semi-analytical and numerical models, with a particular emphasis at finite size scaling effects. Small-size clouds are found to be hollow and arranged in shells corresponding approximately to the solutions of the Thomson problem. The shell structure is lost in clusters containing more than a few thousands of ions, the inner parts of the cloud becoming soft and amorphous. While melting is triggered in the core shells, the melting temperature unexpectedly follows the rule expected for three-dimensional dense particles, with a depression scaling linearly with the inverse radius
Comment on "Prospect of optical frequency standard based on a 43Ca+ ion"
A recent evaluation of the frequency uncertainty expected for an optical
frequency standard based on a single trapped Ca ion was published in
Phys. Rev. A {\bf 72} (2005) 043404. The paper contains some interesting
information like systematic frequency shifts but fails to depict their
uncertainty, leading to confuse accuracy and precision. The conclusions about
the major contribution to the frequency shift are not consistent with the
presented calculations and omit comparisons with data published previously
Diffraction phases in atom interferometers
Diffraction of atoms by laser is a very important tool for matter wave
optics. Although this process is well understood, the phase shifts induced by
this diffraction process are not well known. In this paper, we make analytic
calculations of these phase shifts in some simple cases and we use these
results to model the contrast interferometer recently built by the group of D.
Pritchard at MIT. We thus show that the values of the diffraction phases are
large and that they probably contribute to the phase noise observed in this
experiment.Comment: v3 11/03/0
A double ion trap for large Coulomb crystals
While the linear radiofrequency trap finds various applications in
high-precision spectroscopy and quantum information, its higher-order cousin,
the linear multipole trap, is almost exclusively employed in physical
chemistry. Recently, first experiments have shown interesting features by
laser-cooling multipole-trapped ion clouds. Multipole traps show a flatter
potential in their centre and therefore a modified density distribution
compared to quadrupole traps. Micromotion is an important issue and will
certainly influence the dynamics of crystallized ion structures. Our experiment
tends to investigate possible crystallization processes in the multipole. In a
more general way, we are interested in the study of the dynamics and
thermodynamics of large ion clouds in traps of different geometry.Comment: 10th International Workshop on Non-Neutral Plasmas, Greifswald :
Germany (2012
Heating rate in a linear quadrupole trap
In radio-frequency trap, the temperature of ion ensembles converges towards a
hot equilibrium due to radio-frequency heating. This effect is detrimental to
the stability of trapped ensembles and is the justification of cooling. The
intensity of this radio-frequency heating increases with the amplitude of the
radio-frequency field . Using an analytical empirical formula, we show
that the lifetime of the ion ensemble under cold condition increases with
according to a power law , and does not vary
significantly for the several ion quantities tested. The temperature of the
explosive onset decreases linearly with . We also show that non-linear
instabilities due to trapping parameters decreases and , and produce a
local increase of heating rate for certain temperature ranges.Comment: 6 pages including the 29 references, 4 figures, 2 tables. Research
article intended to complete the previously published work at
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.108.01310
Fast and efficient transport of large ion clouds
The manipulation of trapped charged particles by electric fields is an
accurate, robust and reliable technique for many applications or experiments in
high-precision spectroscopy. The transfer of the ion sample between multiple
traps allows the use of a tailored environment in quantum information, cold
chemistry, or frequency metrology experiments. In this article, we
experimentally study the transport of ion clouds of up to 50 000 ions. The
design of the trap makes ions very sensitive to any mismatch between the
assumed electric potential and the actual local one. Nevertheless, we show that
being fast (100 s to transfer over more than 20 mm) increases the
transport efficiency to values higher than 90 %, even with a large number of
ions. For clouds of less than 2000 ions, a 100 % transfer efficiency is
observed