Quantum State Engineering using Single Nuclear Spin Qubit of Optically Manipulated Ytterbium Atom

A single Yb atom is loaded into a high-finesse optical cavity with a moving lattice, and its nuclear spin state is manipulated using a nuclear magnetic resonance technique. A highly reliable quantum state control with fidelity and purity greater than 0.98 and 0.96, respectively, is confirmed by the full quantum state tomography; a projective measurement with high speed (500us) and high efficiency (0.98) is accomplished using the cavity QED technique. Because a hyperfine coupling is induced only when the projective measurement is operational, the long coherence times (T_1 = 0.49 s and T_2 = 0.10 s) are maintained. Our technique can be applied for implementing a scalable one-way quantum computation with a cluster state in an optical lattice.Comment: 4 figure

How to Measure the Quantum State of Collective Atomic Spin Excitation

The spin state of an atomic ensemble can be viewed as two bosonic modes, i.e., a quantum signal mode and a $c$-numbered ``local oscillator'' mode when large numbers of spin-1/2 atoms are spin-polarized along a certain axis and collectively manipulated within the vicinity of the axis. We present a concrete procedure which determines the spin-excitation-number distribution, i.e., the diagonal elements of the density matrix in the Dicke basis for the collective spin state. By seeing the collective spin state as a statistical mixture of the inherently-entangled Dicke states, the physical picture of its multi-particle entanglement is made clear.Comment: 6 pages, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Single Nuclear Spin Cavity QED

We constructed a cavity QED system with a diamagnetic atom of 171Yb and performed projective measurements on a single nuclear spin. Since Yb has no electronic spin and has 1/2 nuclear spin, the procedure of spin polarization and state verification can be dramatically simplified compared with the pseudo spin-1/2 system. By enhancing the photon emission rate of the 1S0-3P1 transition, projective measurement is implemented for an atom with the measurement time of T_meas = 30us. Unwanted spin flip as well as dark counts of the detector lead to systematic error when the present technique is applied for the determination of diagonal elements of an unknown spin state, which is delta|beta|^2 < 2 * 10^-2. Fast measurement on a long-lived qubit is key to the realization of large-scale one-way quantum computing.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Quantum memory of a squeezed vacuum for arbitrary frequency sidebands

We have developed a quantum memory technique that is completely compatible with current quantum information processing for continuous variables of light, where arbitrary frequency sidebands of a squeezed vacuum can be stored and retrieved using bichromatic electromagnetic induced transparency. 2MHz sidebands of squeezed vacuum pulses with temporal widths of 470ns and a squeezing level of -1.78 +- 0.02dB were stored for 3us in the laser-cooled 87Rb atoms. -0.44 +- 0.02dB of squeezing was retrieved, which is the highest squeezing ever reported for a retrieved pulse.Comment: 4pages, 5figure

Bose-Einstein Condensation of Europium

We report the realization of a Bose-Einstein condensate of europium atoms, which is a strongly dipolar species with unique properties, a highly symmetric $[\mathrm{Xe}]\ 4f^7 6s^2\ {}^8\mathrm{S}_{7/2}$ electronic ground state and a hyperfine structure. By means of evaporative cooling in a crossed optical dipole trap, we produced a condensate of ${}^{151}$Eu containing up to $5\times 10^4$ atoms. The scattering length of ${}^{151}$Eu was estimated to be $a_s = 110(4)\, a_\mathrm{B}$ by comparing the velocities of expansion of condensates with different orientations of the atomic magnetic moments. We observed deformation of the condensate in the vicinity of the Feshbach resonance at $1.32\,\mathrm{G}$ with a width of $10\,\mathrm{mG}$.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Faraday Rotation with Single Nuclear Spin Qubit in a High-Finesse Optical Cavity

When an off-resonant light field is coupled with atomic spins, its polarization can rotate depending on the direction of the spins via a Faraday rotation which has been used for monitoring and controlling the atomic spins. We observed Faraday rotation by an angle of more than 10 degrees for a single 1/2 nuclear spin of 171Yb atom in a high-finesse optical cavity. By employing the coupling between the single nuclear spin and a photon, we have also demonstrated that the spin can be projected or weakly measured through the projection of the transmitted single ancillary photon.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure