Spontaneous Raman processes in cold atoms have been widely used in the past decade for generating single photons. Here, we present a method to optimize their efficiencies for given atomic coherences and optical depths. We give a simple and complete recipe that can be used in present-day experiments, attaining near-optimal single photon emission while preserving the photon purity.
We describe and characterize a setup for subrecoil stimulated Raman spectroscopy of cold cesium atoms. We study in particular the performances of a method designed to active control and stabilization of the magnetic fields across a cold-atom cloud inside a small vacuum cell. The performance of the setup is monitored by {\em copropagative-beam} stimulated Raman spectroscopy of a cold cesium sample. The root mean-square value of the residual magnetic field is 300 $μG$, with a compensation bandwidth of 500 Hz. The shape of the observed spectra is theoretically interpreted and compares very well t…
We propose a model, for the first time, to quantitatively estimate the intercore spontaneous Raman scattering (ICSRS) in multicore fber (MCF) based on the characterization of intercore crosstalk (ICXT). Also, we show the propertis of ICSRS through numerical simulations. Then the impact of ICSRS on quantum key distribution (QKD) is evaluated. It is revealed that both the forward-ICSRS and backwardICSRS will reduce the maximum transmisson distance and the forward-ICSRS will reduce more. However, over the range of metropolitan area networks, quantum signals are affected only when the powers of cl…
The creation of single collective excitations in atomic ensembles via spontaneous Raman emission plays a key role in several quantum communication protocols, starting with the seminal DLCZ protocol [L.-M.Duan, M.D. Lukin, J.I. Cirac, and P. Zoller, Nature {\bf 414}, 413 (2001).] This process is usually analyzed theoretically under the assumptions that the write laser pulse inducing the Raman transition is far off-resonance, and that the atomic ensemble is only homogeneously broadened. Here we study the impact of near-resonance excitation for inhomogeneously broadened ensembles on the collectiv…
We observe velocity-selective two-photon resonances in a cold atom cloud in the presence of a magnetic field. We use these resonances to demonstrate a simple magnetometer with sub-mG resolution. The technique is particularly useful for zeroing the magnetic field and does not require any additional laser frequencies than are already used for standard magneto-optical traps. We verify the effects using Faraday rotation spectroscopy.
The existence of higher order entanglement in the stimulated and spontaneous Raman processes is established using the perturbative solutions of the Heisenberg equations of motion for various field modes that are obtained using the Sen-Mandal technique and a fully quantum mechanical Hamiltonian that describes the stimulated and spontaneous Raman processes. Specifically, the perturbative Sen-Mandal solutions are exploited here to show the signature of the higher order two-mode and multi-mode entanglement. In some special cases, we have also observed higher order entanglement in the partially spo…
We investigate (a) spontaneous Raman scattering of classical signals in long optical fiber links leading to significant Raman noise in quantum channels propagating in the same fiber and (b) impact of chromatic dispersion on the performance of high quantum bit rate QKD systems. One way of decreasing Raman noise is to decrease the classical signal power. This may be achieved by the use of coherent modulation formats and the deployment of Forward Error Correction technology. Additionally, low loss fiber with small Raman gain at telecom wavelengths enables the simultaneous transmission of multiple…
We analyze the achievable precision for single-qubit gates that are based on Raman transitions between two near-degenerate ground states via a virtually excited state. In particular, we study the errors due to non-perfect adiabaticity and due to spontaneous emission from the excited state. For the case of non-adabaticity, we calculate the error as a function of the dimensionless parameter $χ=Δτ$, where $Δ$ is the detuning of the Raman beams and $τ$ is the gate time. For the case of spontaneous emission, we give an analytical argument that the gate errors are approximately equal to $Λγ/Δ$, wher…
Accurate control of a quantum system is a fundamental requirement in many areas of modern science ranging from quantum information processing to high-precision measurements. A significantly important goal in quantum control is to prepare a desired state as fast as possible with sufficiently high fidelity allowed by available resources and experimental constraints. Stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) is a robust way to realize high-fidelity state transfer but it requires a sufficiently long operation time to satisfy the adiabatic criteria. We here theoretically propose and then experime…
We develop a Hamiltonian formalism to study energy and position/momentum correlations between a single Stokes photon and a single material excitation that are created as a pair in the spontaneous Raman scattering process. Our approach allows for intuitive separation of the effects of spectral linewidth, chromatic dispersion, and collection angle on these correlations, and we compare the predictions of the model to experiment. These results have important implications for the use of Raman scattering in quantum protocols that rely on spectrally unentangled photons and collective excitations.
Bridging quantum mechanics and nonlinear optics in Raman scattering
Nikon Corporation(尼康公司);Institute of Pure and Applied Science, University of Tsukuba(筑波大学纯应用科学研究所);Department of Biosciences and Informatics, Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University(庆应义塾大学理工学部生物信息学科)
We propose two quantum error correction schemes which increase the maximum storage time for qubits in a system of cold trapped ions, using a minimal number of ancillary qubits. Both schemes consider only the errors introduced by the decoherence due to spontaneous emission from the upper levels of the ions. Continuous monitoring of the ion fluorescence is used in conjunction with selective coherent feedback to eliminate these errors immediately following spontaneous emission events, and the conditional time evolution between quantum jumps is removed by symmetrizing the quantum codewords.
We show that spontaneous Raman scattering of incident radiation can be observed in cavity-QED systems without external enhancement or coupling to any vibrational degree of freedom. Raman scattering processes can be evidenced as resonances in the emission spectrum, which become clearly visible as the cavity-QED system approaches the ultrastrong coupling regime. We provide a quantum mechanical description of the effect, and show that ultrastrong light-matter coupling is a necessary condition for the observation of Raman scattering. This effect, and its strong sensitivity to the system parameters…
In spontaneous Raman process in atomic cell at high gain, both the Stokes field and the accompanying collective atomic excitation (atomic spin wave) are coherent. We find that, due to the spontaneous nature of the process, the phases of the Stokes field and the atomic spin wave change randomly from one realization to another but are anti-correlated. The phases of the atomic ensembles are read out via another Raman process at a later time, thus realizing phase memory in atoms. The observation of phase correlation between the Stokes field and the collective atomic excitations is an important ste…
Spontaneous Raman Scattering under Vibrational Strong Coupling: The Critical Role of Polariton Spatial Mode Coherence
Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, Institut de Physique et Chimie des Matériaux de Strasbourg(斯特拉斯堡大学);Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, CNRS, Institut Lumière Matière(里昂第一大学)
A perturbative analytic operator solution of a completely quantum mechanical Hamiltonian of multi-photon pump non-degenerate hyper-Raman process is obtained. It is shown that the obtained solution is general in nature as the solutions of non-degenerate hyper-Raman and stimulated Raman processes can be obtained as special cases of the present solution. The analytic solutions obtained here are used to investigate the nonclassical properties of the different modes in the stimulated, spontaneous and partially spontaneous multi-photon pump non-degenerate hyper-Raman processes. The nonclassical natu…
By using spontaneous Raman processes in the high gain regime, we produce two independent Raman Stokes fields from an atomic ensemble. Temporal beating is observed between the two directly generated Stokes fields in a single realization. The beat frequency is found to be a result of an AC Stark frequency shift effect. However, due to the spontaneous nature of the process, the phases of the two Stokes fields change from one realization to another so that the beat signal disappears after average over many realizations. On the other hand, the beat signal is recovered in a two-photon correlation me…
The paper studies Bloch oscillations of cold neutral atoms in the optical lattice. The effect of spontaneous emission on the dynamics of the system is analyzed both analytically and numerically. The spontaneous emission is shown to cause (i) the decay of Bloch oscillations with the decrement given by the rate of spontaneous emission and (ii) the diffusive spreading of the atoms with a diffusion coefficient depending on {\em both} the rate of spontaneous emission and the Bloch frequency.
Entanglement and Optical Nonreciprocity in spontaneous Raman Scattering
Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter(马克斯·普朗克物质结构与动力学研究所);University of Hamburg(汉堡大学);The Hamburg Centre for Ultrafast Imaging(汉堡超快成像中心)
The equations of motion for the molecular rotation are derived for vibrationally cold dimers that are polarized by off-resonant laser light. It is shown that, by eliminating electronic and vibrational degrees of freedom, a quantum master equation for the reduced rotational density operator can be obtained. The coherent rotational dynamics is caused by stimulated Raman transitions, whereas spontaneous Raman transitions lead to decoherence in the motion of the quantized angular momentum. As an example the molecular dynamics for the optical Kerr effect is chosen, revealing decoherence and heating…
In a previous paper [B. Deb and G. S. Agarwal, Phys. Rev. A 90, 063417 (2014)], it was theoretically shown that, magneto-optical manipulation of low energy scattering resonances and atom-molecule transitions could lead to the formation of a bound state in continuum (BIC), provided there is no spontaneous emission. We find that even an exceedingly small spontaneous decay from exited molecular states can spoil the BIC. In this paper, we show how to circumvent the detrimental effect of spontaneous emission by making use of vacuum-induced coherence (VIC) which results in the cancellation or suppre…
We implement high-efficiency coherent excitation to a Rydberg state using stimulated Raman adiabatic passage in a cold atom electron and ion source. We achieve an efficiency of 60% averaged over the laser excitation volume with a peak efficiency of 82%, a 1.6 times improvement relative to incoherent pulsed-laser excitation. Using pulsed electric field ionization of the Rydberg atoms we create electron bunches with durations of 250 ps. High-efficiency excitation will increase source brightness, crucial for ultrafast electron diffraction experiments, and coherent excitation to high-lying Rydberg…
We investigate the question whether Michelson type interferometry is possible if the role of the beam splitter is played by a spontaneous process. This question arises from an inspection of trajectories of atoms bouncing inelastically from an evanescent-wave (EW) mirror. Each final velocity can be reached via two possible paths, with a {\it spontaneous} Raman transition occurring either during the ingoing or the outgoing part of the trajectory. At first sight, one might expect that the spontaneous character of the Raman transfer would destroy the coherence and thus the interference. We investi…
Correlated signal and idler photon pairs with small detuning in the telecom band can be generated through spontaneous four-wave mixing in dispersion shift fibers. However, photons originated from other nonlinear processes in optical fibers, such as Raman scattering and self-phase modulation, may contaminate the photon pairs. It has been proved that photons produced by Raman scattering are the background noise of photon pairs. Here we show that photons induced by self-phase modulation of pump pulses are another origin of background noise. After studying the dependence of self-phase modulation i…
A scheme for fine tuning of quantum operations to improve their performance is proposed. A quantum system in $Λ$ configuration with two-photon Raman transitions is considered without adiabatic elimination of the excited (intermediate) state. Conditional dynamics of the system is studied with focus on improving fidelity of quantum operations. In particular, the $π$ pulse and $π/2$ pulse quantum operations are considered. The dressed states for the atom-field system, with an atom driven on one transition by a classical field and on the other by a quantum cavity field, are found. A discrete set o…
The goal of this short note is to show that the formulas I derived originally in [Phys. Rev. A 65, 022308 (2002)] regarding the errors introduced in quantum logical operations by the quantum nature of the control fields apply even in the situation discussed recently by Ozeri et al. in quant-ph/0502063, where the decoherence-inducing spontaneous Raman scattering is considerably suppressed.
We present a general model, based on a Hamiltonian approach, for the joint quantum state of photon pairs generated through pulsed spontaneous four-wave mixing, including nonlinear phase-modulation and a finite material response time. For the case of a silica fiber, it is found that the pair-production rate depends weakly on the waveguide temperature, due to higher-order Raman scattering events, and more strongly on pump-pair frequency detuning. From the analytical model, a numerical scheme is derived, based on the well-known split-step method. This scheme allows computation of joint states whe…
We present a scheme to realise the basic two-quibit logic gates such as quantum phase gate and controlle-NOT gate using a detuned optical cavity interacting with a three-level Raman system. We discuss the role of Stark shifts which are as important as the terms leading to two-photon transition. The operation of the proposed logic gates involves metastable states of the atom and hence is not affected by spontaneous emission. These ideas can be extended to produce multiparticle entanglement.
We propose a dual-pump third-order nonlinear scheme for producing pairs of correlated photons that is less susceptible to Raman noise than typical spontaneous four wave mixing methods (SFWM). Beginning with the full multimode Hamiltonian we derive a general expression for the joint spectral amplitude, from which the probability of producing a pair of photons can be calculated. As an example, we demonstrate that a probability of 0.028 pairs per pulse can be achieved in an appropriately designed fused silica microfiber. As compared with single pump SFWM in standard fiber, we calculate that our p…
We show that ultra-cold atoms with synthetic spin-orbit coupling in Raman lattices can be used as versatile quantum simulators to explore the connections between correlated Chern insulators and strongly-coupled four-Fermi field theories related to the Gross-Neveu model in (2+1) dimensions. Exploiting this multidisciplinary perspective, we identify a large-$N$ quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) effect in absence of any external magnetic field, and use it to delimit regions in parameter space where these correlated topological phases appear, the boundaries of which are controlled by strongly-coupled f…
We propose the use of stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) to offer a fast high fidelity method of performing SU(2) rotations on spinor Bose Einstein condensates (BEC). Past demonstrations of BEC optical control suffer from difficulties arising from collective enhancement of spontaneous emission and inefficient two-photon transitions originating from selection rules. We present here a novel scheme which allows for arbitrary coherent rotations of two-component BECs while overcoming these issues. Numerical tests of the method show that for BECs of \ce{^{87}Rb} with up to $ 10^4 $ atoms an…
A completely quantum description of Raman process is used to investigate the nonclassical properties of the modes in the stimulated, spontaneous and partially spontaneous Raman process. Both coherent scattering (where all the initial modes are coherent) and chaotic scattering (where initial phonon mode is chaotic and all the other modes are coherent) are studied. Nonclassical character of Raman process is observed by means of intermodal entanglement, single mode and intermodal squeezing of vacuum fluctuations, sub-shot noise and wave variances. Joint photon-phonon number and integrated-intensi…
We study the thermalization of excitations generated by spontaneous emission events for cold bosons in an optical lattice. Computing the dynamics described by the many-body master equation, we characterize equilibration timescales in different parameter regimes. For simple observables, we find regimes in which the system relaxes rapidly to values in agreement with a thermal distribution, and others where thermalization does not occur on typical experimental timescales. Because spontaneous emissions lead effectively to a local quantum quench, this behavior is strongly dependent on the low-energ…
Stimulated Raman interaction of a classically pumped single three-level $Λ$-type atom in a resonator cavity featuring both radiative and unwanted losses is studied. It is shown that in the regime of stimulated adiabatic Raman passage the excited outgoing wave packet of the cavity-assisted electromagnetic field can be prepared in a one-photon Fock state with high efficiency. In this regime, the spatio-temporal shape of the wave packet does not depend on the interaction shape of the pump field, provided that the interaction of the atom with the pump is time-delayed with respect to the interactio…
We show how the dynamics of collisions between cold atoms can be manipulated by a modification of spontaneous emission times. This is achieved by placing the atomic sample in a resonant optical cavity. Spontaneous emission is enhanced by a combination of multiparticle entanglement together with a higher density of modes of the modified vacuum field, in a situation akin to superradiance. A specific situation is considered and we show that this effect can be experimentally observed as a large suppression in trap-loss rates.
We propose a realistic cold-atom quantum setting where nontrivial energy-band topology induces non-reciprocal pumping. This is an intriguing non-Hermitian phenomenon that illustrates how topology, when assisted with atom loss, can act as a "switch" for non-Hermitian skin effect (NHSE), rather than as a passive property that is modified by the NHSE. In particular, we present a lattice shaking scenario to realize a two-dimensional cold-atom platform, where non-reciprocity is switched on only in the presence of both atom loss and topological localization due to time-reversal symmetry breaking. Su…
Vacuum-stimulated Raman scattering in strongly coupled atom-cavity systems allows one to generate free-running single photon pulses on demand. Most properties of the emitted photons are well defined, provided spontaneous emission processes do not contribute. Therefore, electronic excitation of the atom must not occur, which is assured for a system adiabatically following a dark state during the photon-generation process. We experimentally investigate the conditions that must be met for adiabatic following in a time-of-flight driven system, with atoms passing through a cavity and a pump beam or…
The operator solution of a completely quantum mechanical Hamiltonian of the Raman processes is used here to investigate the possibility of obtaining intermodal entanglement between different modes involved in the Raman processes (e.g. pump mode, Stokes mode, vibration (phonon) mode and anti-Stokes mode). Intermodal entanglement is reported between a) pump mode and anti-Stokes mode, b) pump mode and vibration (phonon) mode c) Stokes mode and vibration phonon mode, d) Stokes mode and anti-stokes mode in the stimulated Raman processes for the variation of the phase angle of complex eigenvalue $α_…
We report on the experimental characterization of a novel nonlinear liquid-filled hollow-core photonic-crystal fiber for the generation of photon pairs at telecommunication wavelength through spontaneous four-wave-mixing. We show that the optimization procedure in view of this application links the choice of the nonlinear liquid to the design parameters of the fiber, and we give an example of such an optimization at telecom wavelengths. Combining the modeling of the fiber and classical characterization techniques at these wavelengths, we identify, for the chosen fiber and liquid combination, s…
We examine and explain the spatial emission patterns of ultracold excited fermions in anisotropic trapping potentials in the presence of a spin polarised Fermi sea of ground state atoms. Due to the Pauli principle, the Fermi sea modifies the available phase space for the recoiling atom and thereby modifies its decay rate and the probability of the emitted photon's direction. We show that the spatial anisotropies are due to an intricate interplay between Fermi energies and degeneracy values of specific energy levels and identify a regime in which the emission will become completely directional.…
We demonstrate the storage and retrieval of an on-demand single photon generated by a collective Rydberg excitation in an ultra-low noise Raman quantum memory located in a different cold atomic ensemble. We generate single photons on demand by exciting a cold cloud of Rubidium atoms off resonantly to a Rydberg state, with a generation probability up to 15 $\%$ per trial. We then show that the single photons can be stored and retrieved with an efficiency of 21 $\%$ and a noise floor of $p_n= 2.3(3) \times 10^{-4}$ per trial in the Raman quantum memory. This leads to a signal-to-noise ratio rang…
We study both experimentally and theoretically the generation of photon pairs by spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) in standard birefringent optical fibers. The ability to produce a range of two-photon spectral states, from highly correlated (entangled) to completely factorable, by means of cross-polarized birefringent phase matching, is explored. A simple model is developed to predict the spectral state of the photon pair which shows how this can be adjusted by choosing the appropriate pump bandwidth, fiber length and birefringence. Spontaneous Raman scattering is modeled to determine the tr…
Different laser devices working as ``atom diodes'' or ``one-way barriers'' for ultra-cold atoms have been proposed recently. They transmit ground state level atoms coming from one side, say from the left, but reflect them when they come from the other side. We combine a previous model, consisting of the stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) from the ground to an excited state and a state-selective mirror potential, with a localized quenching laser which produces spontaneous decay back to the ground state. This avoids backwards motion, provides more control of the decay process and theref…
We analyze the error in trapped-ion, hyperfine qubit, quantum gates due to spontaneous scattering of photons from the gate laser beams. We investigate single-qubit rotations that are based on stimulated Raman transitions and two-qubit entangling phase-gates that are based on spin-dependent optical dipole forces. This error is compared between different ion species currently being investigated as possible quantum information carriers. For both gate types we show that with realistic laser powers the scattering error can be reduced to below current estimates of the fault-tolerance error threshold…
We present an elegant application of matterwave interferometry to the velocimetry of cold atoms whereby, in analogy to Fourier transform spectroscopy, the 1-D velocity distribution is manifest in the frequency domain of the interferometer output. By using stimulated Raman transitions between hyperfine ground states to perform a three-pulse interferometer sequence, we have measured the velocity distributions of clouds of freely-expanding $^{85}$Rb atoms with temperatures of 33 $μ$K and 17 $μ$K. Quadrature measurement of the interferometer output as a function of the temporal asymmetry yields ve…
We present the realization of a compact micro-wave frequency synthesizer for an atom interferometer based on stimulated Raman transitions, applied to transportable inertial sensing. Our set-up is intended to address the hyperfine transitions of Rubidium 87 atoms at 6.8 GHz. The prototype is evaluated both in the time and the frequency domain by comparison with state-of-the-art frequency references developed at LNE-SYRTE. In free-running mode, it features a residual phase noise level of -65 dBrad$^2.Hz^{-1} at 10-Hz offset frequency and a white phase noise level in the order of -120 dBrad^2.Hz^…
High-gain resonant nonlinear Raman scattering on trapped cold atoms within a high-fineness ring optical cavity is simply explained under a nonlinear opto-mechanical mechanism, and a proposal using it to detect frequency of micro-trap on atom chip is presented. The enhancement of scattering spectrum is due to a coherent Raman conversion between two different cavity modes mediated by collective vibrations of atoms through nonlinear opto-mechanical couplings. The physical conditions of this technique are roughly estimated on Rubidium atoms, and a simple quantum analysis as well as a multi-body se…
We propose using spontaneous Raman scattering from an optically driven Bose-Einstein condensate as a source of atom-photon pairs whose internal states are maximally entangled. Generating entanglement between a particle which is easily transmitted (the photon) and one which is easily trapped and coherently manipulated (an ultracold atom) will prove useful for a variety of quantum-information related applications. We analyze the type of entangled states generated by spontaneous Raman scattering and construct a geometry which results in maximum entanglement.
We present here a new type of cold atom interferometry gravimeter based on Bragg diffraction, which is able to increase the gravity measurement sensitivity and stability of common Raman atom gravimeters significantly. By comparing with Raman transition, the principles and advantages of Bragg diffraction-based atom gravimeters have been introduced. The theoretical model for a time-domain Bragg atom gravimeter with atomic incident direction parallels to the wave vector of Bragg lasers has been constructed. Some key technical requirements for an nth-order Bragg diffraction-based atom gravimeter h…
We provide a comprehensive study of atomic Raman and Bragg diffraction when coupling to a pair of counterpropagating light gratings (double diffraction) or to a single one (single diffraction) and discuss the transition from one case to the other in a retroreflective geometry as the Doppler detuning changes. In contrast to single diffraction, double Raman loses its advantage of high diffraction efficiency for short pulses and has to be performed in a Bragg-type regime. Moreover, the structure of double diffraction leads to further limitations for broad momentum distributions on the efficiency …