Search Results (69 total)

We have observed tunneling suppression and photon-assisted tunneling of Bose-Einstein condensates in an optical lattice subjected to a constant force plus a sinusoidal shaking. For a sufficiently large constant force, the ground energy levels of the lattice are shifted out of resonance and tunneling is suppressed; when the shaking is switched on, the levels are coupled by low-frequency photons and tunneling resumes. Our results agree well with theoretical predictions and demonstrate the usefulness of optical lattices for studying solid-state phenomena.

We report on measurements of dynamical suppression of interwell 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.

We propose a technique which produces nearly complete ionization of the population of a discrete state coupled to a continuum by a two-photon transition via a lossy intermediate state whose lifetime is much shorter than the interaction duration. We show that using counterintuitively ordered pulses, as in stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP), wherein the pulse coupling the intermediate state to the continuum precedes and partly overlaps the pulse coupling the initial and intermediate states, greatly increases the ionization signal and strongly reduces the population loss due to spontaneous emission through the lossy state. For strong spontaneous emission from that state, however, the ionization is never complete because the dark state required for STIRAP does not exist. We demonstrate that this drawback can be eliminated almost completely by creating a laser-induced continuum structure (LICS) by embedding a third discrete state into the continuum with a third control laser. This LICS introduces some coherence into the continuum, which enables a STIRAP-like population transfer into the continuum. A highly accurate analytic description is developed and numerical results are presented for Gaussian pulse shapes.

We have observed the ultraslow propagation of matched pulses in nondegenerate four-wave mixing in a hot atomic vapor. Probe pulses as short as 70 ns can be delayed by a tunable time of up to 40 ns with little broadening or distortion. During the propagation, a probe pulse is amplified and generates a conjugate pulse which is faster and separates from the probe pulse before getting locked to it at a fixed delay. The precise timing of this process allows us to determine the key coefficients of the susceptibility tensor. The fact that the same configuration has been shown to generate quantum correlations makes this system very promising in the context of quantum information processing.

Laser cooling is theoretically investigated in a cascade three-level scheme, where the excited state of a laser-driven transition is coupled by a second laser to a top, more stable level, as for alkaline-earth-metal atoms. The second laser action modifies the atomic scattering cross section and produces temperatures lower than those reached by Doppler cooling on the lower transition. When multiphoton processes due to the second laser are relevant, an electromagnetic-induced transparency modifies the absorption of the first laser, and the final temperature is controlled by the second laser parameters. When the intermediate state is only virtually excited, the dynamics is dominated by the two-photon process and the final temperature is determined by the spontaneous decay rate of the top state.

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.

We have determined the scattering length of the a  ³Σ⁺ potential of ⁸⁷RbCs based on experimental observations from the literature and the known value for the long-range dispersion coefficient. Our analysis uses quantum defect theory and analytical solutions of the Schrödinger equation for a van der Waals potential. We find that the scattering length is either 700₋₃₀₀⁺⁷⁰⁰a₀ or (176±2)a₀ with more confidence associated with the first value, where a₀=0.052  92  nm is the Bohr radius. An independent value of the van der Waals coefficient could not be determined and the best theoretically determined C₆ value was used.

We propose a combination of electromagnetically induced transparency–Raman and pulsed spectroscopy techniques to accurately cancel frequency shifts arising from electromagnetically induced transparency fields in forbidden optical clock transitions of alkaline earth atoms. At appropriate detunings, time-separated laser pulses are designed to trap atoms in coherent superpositions while eliminating off-resonance ac Stark contributions, achieving efficient population transfer up to 60% with inaccuracy <10^-17. Results from the wave-function formalism are confirmed by the density matrix approach.

We present a very simple model for realizing directed transport with cold atoms in a pair of periodically flashed optical lattices. The origin of this ratchet effect is explained and its robustness demonstrated under imperfections typical of cold atom experiments. We conclude that our model offers a clear-cut way to implement directed transport in an atom optical experiment.

Optical lattices with a large spacing between the minima of the optical potential can be created using the angle-tuned geometry where the one-dimensional periodic potential is generated by two propagating laser beams intersecting at an angle different from π. The present work analyzes the coherent transport for the case of this geometry. We show that the potential depth can be kept constant during the transport by choosing a magic value for the laser wavelength. This value agrees with that of the counterpropagating laser case, and the magic wavelength does not depend on the optical lattice geometry. Moreover, we find that this scheme can be used to implement controlled collision experiments under special geometric conditions. Finally we study the transport of hyperfine-Zeeman states of ⁸⁷Rb.

We present detailed numerical results on the dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a tilted periodic optical lattice over many Bloch periods. We show that an increasing atom-atom interaction systematically affects coherent tunneling, and eventually destroys the resonant tunneling peaks.

A two-photon mechanism for cooling atoms below the Doppler temperature is analyzed. We consider the magnesium ladder system (3s²)¹S₀→(3s3p)¹P₁ at 285.2  nm followed by the (3s3p)¹P₁→(3s3d)¹D₂ transition at 880.7  nm. For the ladder system quantum coherence effects may become important. Combined with the basic two-level Doppler cooling process this allows for reduction of the atomic sample temperature by more than a factor of 10 over a broad frequency range. First experimental evidence for the two-photon cooling process is presented and compared to model calculations. Agreement between theory and experiment is excellent. In addition, by properly choosing the Rabi frequencies of the two optical transitions a velocity independent atomic dark state is observed.

We present a model for the collisional properties of a mixture of ¹³³Cs and ⁸⁷Rb atoms in a magnetic trap at μK temperatures. The experimental sequence we model corresponds to a selective evaporation of the Rb atoms using a radio-frequency field, leading to sympathetic cooling of the Cs atoms or, if selective evaporation is carried out fast, to a difference in temperature between the two atomic species. In the latter case, the two atomic clouds reached an equilibrium temperature starting from an Rb temperature lower than that of Cs. By supposing that each atomic cloud was in thermal equilibrium we modeled this rethermalization process through differential equations for the two atomic temperatures. An alternative approach was based on the Monte Carlo simulations of the individual collisional processes. The sympathetic cooling and the rethermalization were analyzed in terms of the inter-species collisional cross-section.

We report on measurements of the collisional properties of a mixture of ¹³³Cs and ⁸⁷Rb atoms in a magnetic trap at μK temperatures. By selectively evaporating the Rb atoms using a radio-frequency field, we achieved sympathetic cooling of Cs down to a few μK. The interspecies collisional cross section was determined through rethermalization measurements, leading to good agreement with a theoretical prediction of 595a₀ for the triplet s-wave scattering length for Rb in the ∣F=2,m_F=2⟩ and Cs in the ∣F=4,m_F=4⟩ magnetic states. We briefly speculate on the prospects for reaching the Bose-Einstein condensation of Cs inside a magnetic trap through sympathetic cooling.

An optical atomic clock scheme is proposed that utilizes two lasers to establish coherent coupling between the 5s^2 1S₀ ground state of ⁸⁸Sr and the first excited state, 5s5p ³P₀. The coupling is mediated by the broad 5s5p ¹P₁ state, exploiting the phenomenon of electromagnetically induced transparency. The effective linewidth of the clock transition can be chosen at will by adjusting the laser intensity. By trapping the ⁸⁸Sr atoms in an optical lattice, long interaction times with the two lasers are ensured; Doppler and recoil effects are eliminated. Based on a careful analysis of systematic errors, a clock accuracy of better than 2×10^-17 is expected.

Our realistic numerical results show that the fundamental and higher-order quantum resonances of the δ-kicked rotor are observable in state-of-the-art experiments with a Bose condensate in a shallow harmonic trap, kicked by a spatially periodic optical lattice. For stronger confinement, interaction-induced destruction of the resonant motion of the kicked harmonic oscillator is predicted.

In a time-orbiting-potential magnetic trap the neutral atoms are confined by means of an inhomogeneous magnetic field superimposed onto an uniform rotating one. We perform an analytic study of the atomic motion by taking into account the nonadiabatic effects arising from the spin dynamics about the local magnetic field. Geometric like magnetic fields determined by Berry’s phase appear within the quantum description. Application of the time-dependent variational principle on the original quantum equation leads to a set of dynamical evolution equations for the quantum average value of the position operator and spin variables. Within this approximation we derive the quantum-mechanical ground-state configuration matching the classical adiabatic solution and perform some numerical simulations.

We present theoretical and experimental studies of the dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates in a one-dimensional optical lattice and a three-dimensional harmonic trap. For low atom densities and inertial forces, the condensate performs regular Bloch oscillations, and its center-of-mass motion closely follows semiclassical single-particle trajectories, shaped by the lowest-energy band. But in other regimes, the center-of-mass motion disrupts the internal structure of the condensate by generating solitons and vortex rings, which can trigger explosive expansion of the atom cloud. We use images of the atom cloud to provide experimental evidence for this internal disruption, and find that the process occurs most readily in high-density condensates undergoing slow Bloch oscillations.

Using a simple model for nonlinear Landau-Zener tunneling between two energy bands of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a periodic potential, we find that the tunneling rates for the two directions of tunneling are not the same. Tunneling from the ground state to the excited state is enhanced by the nonlinearity, whereas in the opposite direction it is suppressed. These findings are confirmed by numerical simulations of the condensate dynamics. Measuring the tunneling rates for a condensate of rubidium atoms in an optical lattice, we have found experimental evidence for this asymmetry.

The dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate nonadiabatically loaded into a one-dimensional optical lattice is studied by analyzing the phase coherence between sites along the lattice as well as the radial profile of the condensate after a time-of flight. A simple model is proposed that predicts the short-time dephasing as a function of the condensate parameters. In the radial direction, heavily damped oscillations are observed, as well as an increase in the condensate temperature. These findings are interpreted as a rethermalization due to dissipation of the initial condensate excitations into high-lying modes.

Photoionization of a cold atomic sample offers intriguing possibilities for observing collective effects at extremely low temperatures. Irradiation of a rubidium condensate and of cold rubidium atoms within a magneto-optical trap (MOT) with laser pulses ionizing through one-photon and two-photon absorption processes was performed. Losses and modifications in the density profile of the remaining trapped cold cloud or the remaining condensate sample were examined as functions of the ionizing laser parameters. Ionization cross sections were measured for atoms in a MOT, while in magnetic traps losses larger than those expected for ionization process were measured.

We have experimentally investigated the free expansion of a Bose-Einstein condensate in an array of two-dimensional traps created by a one-dimensional optical lattice. If the condensate held in a magnetic trap is loaded adiabatically into the lattice, the increase in chemical potential due to the additional periodic potential is reflected in the expansion of the condensate after switching off the magnetic trap. We have calculated the chemical potential from measurements of the transverse expansion of the condensate as a function of the lattice parameters.

We report experimental results on the properties of Bose-Einstein condensates in one-dimensional optical lattices. By accelerating the lattice, we observed Bloch oscillations of the condensate in the lowest band, as well as Landau-Zener (LZ) tunneling into higher bands when the lattice depth was reduced and/or the acceleration of the lattice was increased. The dependence of the LZ tunneling rate on the condensate density was then related to mean-field effects modifying the effective potential acting on the condensate, yielding good agreement with recent theoretical work. We also present several methods for measuring the lattice depth and discuss the effects of the micromotion in the time-orbiting-potential trap on our experimental results.

We have loaded Bose-Einstein condensates into one-dimensional, off-resonant optical lattices and accelerated them by chirping the frequency difference between the two lattice beams. For small values of the lattice well depth, Bloch oscillations were observed. Reducing the potential depth further, Landau-Zener tunneling out of the lowest lattice band, leading to a breakdown of the oscillations, was also studied and used as a probe for the effective potential resulting from mean-field interactions as predicted by Choi and Niu [Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 2022 (1999)]. The effective potential was measured for various condensate densities and trap geometries, yielding good qualitative agreement with theoretical calculations.