47 research outputs found
Quantum Control of Qubits and Atomic Motion Using Ultrafast Laser Pulses
Pulsed lasers offer significant advantages over CW lasers in the coherent
control of qubits. Here we review the theoretical and experimental aspects of
controlling the internal and external states of individual trapped atoms with
pulse trains. Two distinct regimes of laser intensity are identified. When the
pulses are sufficiently weak that the Rabi frequency is much smaller
than the trap frequency \otrap, sideband transitions can be addressed and
atom-atom entanglement can be accomplished in much the same way as with CW
lasers. By contrast, if the pulses are very strong (\Omega \gg \otrap),
impulsive spin-dependent kicks can be combined to create entangling gates which
are much faster than a trap period. These fast entangling gates should work
outside of the Lamb-Dicke regime and be insensitive to thermal atomic motion.Comment: 16 pages, 15 figure
Direct absorption imaging of ultracold polar molecules
We demonstrate a scheme for direct absorption imaging of an ultracold
ground-state polar molecular gas near quantum degeneracy. A challenge in
imaging molecules is the lack of closed optical cycling transitions. Our
technique relies on photon shot-noise limited absorption imaging on a strong
bound-bound molecular transition. We present a systematic characterization of
this imaging technique. Using this technique combined with time-of-flight (TOF)
expansion, we demonstrate the capability to determine momentum and spatial
distributions for the molecular gas. We anticipate that this imaging technique
will be a powerful tool for studying molecular quantum gases.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Non-thermalization in trapped atomic ion spin chains
Linear arrays of trapped and laser cooled atomic ions are a versatile
platform for studying emergent phenomena in strongly-interacting many-body
systems. Effective spins are encoded in long-lived electronic levels of each
ion and made to interact through laser mediated optical dipole forces. The
advantages of experiments with cold trapped ions, including high spatiotemporal
resolution, decoupling from the external environment, and control over the
system Hamiltonian, are used to measure quantum effects not always accessible
in natural condensed matter samples. In this review we highlight recent work
using trapped ions to explore a variety of non-ergodic phenomena in long-range
interacting spin-models which are heralded by memory of out-of-equilibrium
initial conditions. We observe long-lived memory in static magnetizations for
quenched many-body localization and prethermalization, while memory is
preserved in the periodic oscillations of a driven discrete time crystal state.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, submitted for edition of Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A
on "Breakdown of ergodicity in quantum systems
Ultracold polar molecules near quantum degeneracy
We report the creation and characterization of a near quantum-degenerate gas
of polar K-Rb molecules in their absolute rovibrational ground
state. Starting from weakly bound heteronuclear KRb Feshbach molecules, we
implement precise control of the molecular electronic, vibrational, and
rotational degrees of freedom with phase-coherent laser fields. In particular,
we coherently transfer these weakly bound molecules across a 125 THz frequency
gap in a single step into the absolute rovibrational ground state of the
electronic ground potential. Phase coherence between lasers involved in the
transfer process is ensured by referencing the lasers to two single components
of a phase-stabilized optical frequency comb. Using these methods, we prepare a
dense gas of polar molecules at a temperature below 400 nK. This
fermionic molecular ensemble is close to quantum degeneracy and can be
characterized by a degeneracy parameter of . We have measured the
molecular polarizability in an optical dipole trap where the trap lifetime
gives clues to interesting ultracold chemical processes. Given the large
measured dipole moment of the KRb molecules of 0.5 Debye, the study of quantum
degenerate molecular gases interacting via strong dipolar interactions is now
within experimental reach