88 research outputs found
Nonlinear spectroscopy in the strong-coupling regime of cavity QED
A nonlinear spectroscopic investigation of a strongly coupled atom-cavity system is presented. A two-field pump-probe experiment is employed to study nonlinear structure as the average number of intracavity atoms is varied from N̅≈4.2 to N̅≈0.8. Nonlinear effects are observed for as few as 0.1 intracavity pump photons. A detailed semiclassical simulation of the atomic beam experiment gives reasonable agreement with the data for N̅≳2 atoms. The simulation procedure accounts for fluctuations in atom-field coupling which have important effects on both the linear and nonlinear probe transmission spectra. A discrepancy between the simulations and the experiments is observed for small numbers of atoms (N̅≲1). Unfortunately, it is difficult to determine if this discrepancy is a definitive consequence of the quantum nature of the atom-cavity coupling or a result of the severe technical complications of the experiment
Near-field imaging with two transmission gratings for submicrometer localization of atoms
We show theoretically that an atomic pattern with period d can be obtained with 100% visibility even for an infinitely extended source by sending atoms through two transmission gratings with periods d and d/2, respectively, and separated by half the Talbot length LT/2=d^2/2λdB, where λdB is the atomic wavelength and the source is infinitely far away. For a finite source distance, as would be attainable in any real experiment, a small correction to the grating periods and separations restores the period-d pattern. This effect is closely related to the Talbot and Lau effects in classical optics and can be used to localize atoms to a submicrometer scale without a compromise in atomic flux. We first derive compact analytical formulas for the idealized case of a monochromatic source and large gratings and then verify numerically that a finite grating size and velocity dispersion in the beam do not decrease the fringe visibility considerably. Finally, we briefly present an experiment in preparation to exhibit this localization
Quantum Theory Approach for Neutron Single and Double-Slit Diffraction
We provide a quantum approach description of neutron single and double-slit
diffraction, with specific attention to the cold neutron diffraction (\AA) carried out by Zeilinger et al. in 1988. We find the
theoretical results are good agreement with experimental data.Comment: 10 page
Experimental verification of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle for hot fullerene molecules
The Heisenberg uncertainty principle for material objects is an essential
corner stone of quantum mechanics and clearly visualizes the wave nature of
matter. Here we report a demonstration of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle
for the most massive, complex and hottest single object so far, the fullerene
molecule C70 at a temperature of 900 K. We find a good quantitative agreement
with the theoretical expectation: dx * dp = h, where dx is the width of the
restricting slit, dp is the momentum transfer required to deflect the fullerene
to the first interference minimum and h is Planck's quantum of action.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Bloch-Like Quantum Multiple Reflections of Atoms
We show that under certain circumstances an atom can follow an oscillatory
motion in a periodic laser profile with a Gaussian envelope. These oscillations
can be well explained by using a model of energetically forbidden spatial
regions. The similarities and differences with Bloch oscillations are
discussed. We demonstrate that the effect exists not only for repulsive but
also for attractive potentials, i.e. quantum multiple reflections are also
possible.Comment: LaTeX, 7 pages, 7 figure
An interferometric complementarity experiment in a bulk Nuclear Magnetic Resonance ensemble
We have experimentally demonstrated the interferometric complementarity,
which relates the distinguishability quantifying the amount of which-way
(WW) information to the fringe visibility characterizing the wave feature
of a quantum entity, in a bulk ensemble by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR)
techniques. We primarily concern on the intermediate cases: partial fringe
visibility and incomplete WW information. We propose a quantitative measure of
by an alternative geometric strategy and investigate the relation between
and entanglement. By measuring and independently, it turns out that
the duality relation holds for pure quantum states of the
markers.Comment: 13 page, 5 PS figure
Atomic matter wave scanner
We report on the experimental realization of an atom optical device, that
allows scanning of an atomic beam. We used a time-modulated evanescent wave
field above a glass surface to diffract a continuous beam of metastable Neon
atoms at grazing incidence. The diffraction angles and efficiencies were
controlled by the frequency and form of modulation, respectively. With an
optimized shape, obtained from a numerical simulation, we were able to transfer
more than 50% of the atoms into the first order beam, which we were able to
move over a range of 8 mrad.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
High resolution amplitude and phase gratings in atom optics
An atom-field geometry is chosen in which an atomic beam traverses a field
interaction zone consisting of three fields, one having frequency propagating in the direction and the other two having
frequencies and propagating in the
- direction. For and , where and are positive integers and
is the pulse duration in the atomic rest frame, the atom-field interaction
results in the creation of atom amplitude and phase gratings having period . In this manner, one can use optical fields having
wavelength to produce atom gratings having periodicity much less
than .Comment: 11 pages, 14 figure
Corpuscular model of two-beam interference and double-slit experiments with single photons
We introduce an event-based corpuscular simulation model that reproduces the
wave mechanical results of single-photon double slit and two-beam interference
experiments and (of a one-to-one copy of an experimental realization) of a
single-photon interference experiment with a Fresnel biprism. The simulation
comprises models that capture the essential features of the apparatuses used in
the experiment, including the single-photon detectors recording individual
detector clicks. We demonstrate that incorporating in the detector model,
simple and minimalistic processes mimicking the memory and threshold behavior
of single-photon detectors is sufficient to produce multipath interference
patterns. These multipath interference patterns are built up by individual
particles taking one single path to the detector where they arrive one-by-one.
The particles in our model are not corpuscular in the standard, classical
physics sense in that they are information carriers that exchange information
with the apparatuses of the experimental set-up. The interference pattern is
the final, collective outcome of the information exchanges of many particles
with these apparatuses. The interference patterns are produced without making
reference to the solution of a wave equation and without introducing signalling
or non-local interactions between the particles or between different detection
points on the detector screen.Comment: Accepted for publication in J. Phys. Soc. Jpn
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