1,995 research outputs found
Dynamics and phase evolution of Bose-Einstein condensates in one-dimensional optical lattices
We report experimental results on the dynamics and phase evolution of
Bose-Einstein condensates in 1D optical lattices. The dynamical behaviour is
studied by adiabatically loading the condensate into the lattice and
subsequently switching off the magnetic trap. In this case, the condensate is
free to expand inside the periodic structure of the optical lattice. The phase
evolution of the condensate, on the other hand, can be studied by
non-adiabatically switching on the periodic potential. We observe decays and
revivals of the interference pattern after a time-of-flight.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures; submitted to the Proceedings of the 11th Laser
Physics Workshop, Bratislava 200
Nonlinear effects for Bose Einstein condensates in optical lattices
We present our experimental investigations on the subject of dynamical
nonlinearity-induced instabilities and of nonlinear Landau-Zener tunneling
between two energy bands in a Rubidium Bose-Einstein condensate in an
accelerated periodic potential. These two effects may be considered two
different regimes (for small and large acceleration) of the same physical
system and studied with the same experimental protocol. Nonlinearity introduces
an asymmetry in Landau-Zener tunneling; as a result, tunneling from the ground
state to the excited state is enhanced whereas in the opposite direction it is
suppressed. When the acceleration is lowered, the condensate exhibits an
unstable behaviour due to nonlinearity. We also carried out a full numerical
simulation of both regimes integrating the full Gross-Pitaevskii equation; for
the Landau-Zener effect we also used a simple two-level model. In both cases we
found good agreement with the experimental results.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures. Submitted to Laser Physic
Evolution of a collapsing and exploding Bose-Einstein condensate in different trap symmetries
Based on the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation we study the evolution
of a collapsing and exploding Bose-Einstein condensate in different trap
symmetries to see the effect of confinement on collapse and subsequent
explosion, which can be verified in future experiments. We make prediction for
the evolution of the shape of the condensate and the number of atoms in it for
different trap symmetries (cigar to pancake) as well as in the presence of an
optical lattice potential. We also make prediction for the jet formation in
different cases when the collapse is suddenly terminated by changing the
scattering length to zero via a Feshbach resonance.Comment: 8 pages, 11 ps figures, Physical Review
Rydberg excitation of a Bose-Einstein condensate
We have performed two-photon excitation via the 6P3/2 state to n=50-80 S or D
Rydberg state in Bose-Einstein condensates of rubidium atoms. The Rydberg
excitation was performed in a quartz cell, where electric fields generated by
plates external to the cell created electric charges on the cell walls.
Avoiding accumulation of the charges and realizing good control over the
applied electric field was obtained when the fields were applied only for a
short time, typically a few microseconds. Rydberg excitations of the
Bose-Einstein condensates loaded into quasi one-dimensional traps and in
optical lattices have been investigated. The results for condensates expanded
to different sizes in the one-dimensional trap agree well with the intuitive
picture of a chain of Rydberg excitations controlled by the dipole-dipole
interaction. The optical lattice applied along the one-dimensional geometry
produces localized, collective Rydberg excitations controlled by the
nearest-neighbour blockade.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, Laser Physics in press. arXiv admin note: text
overlap with arXiv:1103.423
Resonantly enhanced tunneling of Bose-Einstein condensates in periodic potentials
We report on measurements of resonantly enhanced tunneling of Bose-Einstein
condensates loaded into an optical lattice. By controlling the initial
conditions of our system we were able to observe resonant tunneling in the
ground and the first two excited states of the lattice wells. We also
investigated the effect of the intrinsic nonlinearity of the condensate on the
tunneling resonances.Comment: accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Letter
Dynamical control of matter-wave tunneling in periodic potentials
We report on measurements of dynamical suppression of inter-well tunneling of
a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in a strongly driven optical lattice. The
strong driving is a sinusoidal shaking of the lattice corresponding to a
time-varying linear potential, and the tunneling is measured by letting the BEC
freely expand in the lattice. The measured tunneling rate is reduced and, for
certain values of the shaking parameter, completely suppressed. Our results are
in excellent agreement with theoretical predictions. Furthermore, we have
verified that in general the strong shaking does not destroy the phase
coherence of the BEC, opening up the possibility of realizing quantum phase
transitions by using the shaking strength as the control parameter.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Expansion of matter waves in static and driven periodic potentials
We study the non-equilibrium dynamics of cold atoms held in an optical
lattice potential. The expansion of an initially confined atom cloud occurs in
two phases: an initial quadratic expansion followed by a ballistic behaviour at
long times. Accounting for this gives a good description of recent experimental
results, and provides a robust method to extract the effective intersite
tunneling from time-of-flight measurements.Comment: 4 pages, 3 eps figure
Instabilities of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a periodic potential: an experimental investigation
By accelerating a Bose-Einstein condensate in a controlled way across the
edge of the Brillouin zone of a 1D optical lattice, we investigate the
stability of the condensate in the vicinity of the zone edge. Through an
analysis of the visibility of the interference pattern after a time-of-flight
and the widths of the interference peaks, we characterize the onset of
instability as the acceleration of the lattice is decreased. We briefly discuss
the significance of our results with respect to recent theoretical work.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures; submitted to Optics Express (Focus Issue on Cold
Atomic Gases in Optical Lattices
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