We present a theoretical description for a lasing scheme for atoms with three internal levels in a $V$-configuration and interacting with an optical cavity. The use of a $V$-level system allows for an efficient closed lasing cycle to be sustained on a dipole-forbidden transition without the need for incoherent repumping. This is made possible by utilizing an additional dipole-allowed transition. We determine the lasing threshold and emission frequency by performing a stability analysis of the non-lasing solution. In the lasing regime, we use a mean-field Floquet method (MFFM) to calculate the lasing intensity and emission frequency. This MFFM predicts the lasing transition to be accompanied by the breaking of a continuous $U(1)$ symmetry in a single Fourier component of the total field. In addition, we use the MFFM to derive bistable lasing and non-lasing solutions that highlight the non-linear nature of this system. We then test the bistability by studying hysteresis when slowly ramping external parameters across the threshold and back. Furthermore, we also compare our mean-field results to a second-order cumulant approach. The work provides simple methods for understanding complex physics that occur in cold atom lasers with narrow line transitions.
We develop the Landau-Zener transfer matrix theory for the instantaneous Floquet states (IFSs) for quantum systems driven by strong pulse lasers. Applying this theory to the pulse excitation probability in two-level quantum systems, we show unexpectedly good quantitative agreements for few-cycle pulses. This approach enables us to qualitatively understand the probability's peculiar behaviors as quantum path interference between IFSs. We also study the pulse-width dependence, finding that this Floquet-state interpretation remains useful for shorter pulses down to 2-cycle ones in the present mod…
Topological phases with a widely tunable number of edge modes have been extensively studied as a typical class of exotic states of matter with potentially important applications. Although several models have been shown to support such phases, they are not easy to realize in solid-state systems due to the complexity of various intervening factors. Inspired by the realization of synthetic spin-orbit coupling in a cold-atom system [Z. Wu {\it et al.}, Science \textbf{354}, 83 (2016)], we propose a periodic quenching scheme to realize large-topological-number phases with multiple edge modes in opt…
In this study, we have studied the quantum tunneling of a single spin-orbit-coupled atom held in a periodically modulated optical lattice with an impurity. At the pseudocollapse points of quasienergy bands, where the dynamical localization takes place globally, two types of local second-order tunneling processes appear beyond expectation between the two nearest-neighbor sites of the impurity with the spin unchanged and with impurity site population negligible all the time, when the impurity potential is far off-resonant with the driving field. Though tunneling behaviors of the two types seem t…
We consider an ensemble of ultracold bosonic atoms within a near-planar cavity, driven by a far detuned laser whose phase is modulated at a frequency comparable to the transverse cavity mode spacing. We show that a strong, dispersive atom-photon coupling can be reached for many transverse cavity modes at once. The resulting Floquet polaritons involve a superposition of a set of cavity modes with a density excitation of the atomic cloud. The mutual interactions between these modes lead to distinct avoided crossings between the polaritons. Increasing the laser drive intensity, a low-lying multim…
We combine the formalisms of Floquet theory and full counting statistics with a Markovian embedding strategy to access the dynamics and thermodynamics of a periodically driven thermal machine beyond the conventional Born-Markov approximation. The working medium is a two-level system and we drive the tunneling as well as the coupling to one bath with the same period. We identify four different operating regimes of our machine which include a heat engine and a refrigerator. As the coupling strength with one bath is increased, the refrigerator regime disappears, the heat engine regime narrows and…
We theoretically investigate the collisional heating of a cold atom system subjected to time-periodic forces. We show within the Floquet framework that this heating rate due to two-body collisions has a general semiclassical expression $\mathcal{P}\propto ρσv_{\rm col} E_0$, depending on the kinetic energy $E_0$ associated with the shaking, particle number density $ρ$, elastic collision cross section $σ$, and an effective collisional velocity $v_{\rm col}$ determined by the dominant energy scale in the system. We further show that the collisional heating is suppressed by Pauli blocking in cold…
We propose and analyze two distinct routes toward realizing interacting symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases via periodic driving. First, we demonstrate that a driven transverse-field Ising model can be used to engineer complex interactions which enable the emulation of an equilibrium SPT phase. This phase remains stable only within a parametric time scale controlled by the driving frequency, beyond which its topological features break down. To overcome this issue, we consider an alternate route based upon realizing an intrinsically Floquet SPT phase that does not have any equilibrium a…
We revisit the Floquet-Bloch eigenstates of a one-dimensional electron gas in the presence of the periodic Kronig-Penny potential and an oscillating electric field. Considering the appropriate boundary conditions for the wave function and its derivative, we derive the determining equations for the Floquet-Bloch eigenstates, which are represented by a single-infinite matrix rather than a double-infinite matrix needed for a generic potential. We numerically solve these equations, showing that there appear anticrossings at the crossing points of the different Floquet bands as well as the band gap…
For a simple illustrative model Hamiltonian for Xenon in low frequency linearly polarized laser field we obtain a remarkable agreement between the zero-order energy as well as amplitude and phase of the zero-order Floquet states and the exact eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of the Floquet operator. Here we use as a zero-order Hamiltonian the adiabatic Hamiltonian where time is used as an instantaneous parameter. Moreover, for a variety of low laser frequencies, $ω$, the deviation of the zero-order solutions from the exact quasi-energy (QE) Floquet solutions approaches zero at the time the oscil…
We demonstrate how to control the spectra and current flow of Dirac electrons in both a graphene sheet and a topological insulator by applying either two linearly polarized laser fields with frequencies $ω$ and $2ω$ or a monochromatic (one-frequency) laser field together with a spatially periodic static potential(graphene/TI superlattice). Using the Floquet theory and the resonance approximation, we show that a Dirac point in the electron spectrum can be split into several Dirac points whose relative location in momentum space can be efficiently manipulated by changing the characteristics of t…
Probing disorder-driven topological phase transitions via topological edge modes with ultracold atoms in Floquet-engineered honeycomb lattices
Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik（马克斯·普朗克量子光学研究所）；Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology (MCQST)（慕尼黑量子科学与技术中心）；Fakultät für Physik, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität（慕尼黑大学物理学院）
High-harmonic generation (HHG) of a two-level-system driven by an intense monochromatic phase-locked laser is studied in terms of complex spectral analysis with the Floquet method. In contrast to the phenomenological approaches, this analysis deals with the whole process as a coherent quantum process based on microscopic dynamics. The spectral decomposition corresponding to the contributions of the Floquet resonance and dressed continuous states of the total system have been obtained. The calculated HHG spectrum exhibits the characteristic features of the HHG from solids. We found that the qua…
We propose a method to obtain Floquet states---also known as light-induced states---and their quasi-energies from real-time wavefunctions without solving the Floquet equation. This is useful for the analysis of various phenomena in time-dependent quantum dynamics if the Hamiltonian is not strictly periodic, as in short laser pulses, for instance. There, the population of the Floquet states depends on the pulse form and is automatically contained in the real-time wavefunction but not in the standard Floquet approach. Several examples in the area of intense laser-atom interaction are exemplarily…
In molecular photodissociation, some specific combinations of laser parameters (wavelength and intensity) lead to unexpected Zero-Width Resonances (ZWR), with in principle infinite lifetimes. Their interest in inducing basic quenching mechanisms have recently been devised in the laser control of vibrational cooling through filtration strategies [O. Atabek et al., Phys. Rev. A87, 031403(R) (2013)]. A full quantum adiabatic control theory based on the adiabatic Floquet Hamiltonian is developed to show how a laser pulse could be envelop-shaped and frequency-chirped so as to protect a given initia…
We study the dynamics of neutral cold atoms in an $L$-shaped crossed-beam optical waveguide formed by two perpendicular red-detuned lasers of different intensities and a blue-detuned laser at the corner. Complemented with a vibrational cooling process this setting works as a one-way device or "atom diode".
Inducing topological transitions by a time-periodic perturbation offers a route to controlling the properties of materials. Here we show that the adiabatic preparation of a non-trivial state involves a selective population of edge-states, due to exponentially-small gaps preventing adiabaticity. We illustrate this by studying graphene-like ribbons with hopping's phases of slowly increasing amplitude, as for, e.g., a circularly polarized laser slowly turned-on. The induced currents have large periodic oscillations, but flow solely at the edges upon time-averaging, and can be controlled by focusi…
We present a numerical method to simulate non-equilibrium Floquet steady states of one-dimensional periodically-driven (Floquet) many-body systems coupled to a dissipative bath, called open-system Floquet DMRG (OFDMRG). This method is based on a matrix product operator ansatz for the Floquet density matrix in frequency-space, and enables access to large systems beyond the reach of exact master-equation or quantum trajectory simulations, while retaining information about the periodic micro-motion in Floquet steady states. An excited-state extension of this technique also allows computation of t…
We show how Cooper-pair-assisted transport, which describes the stimulated transport of electrons in the presence of Cooper-pairs, can be engineered and controlled with cold atoms, in regimes that are difficult to access for condensed matter systems. Our model is a channel connecting two cold atomic gases, and the mechanism to generate such a transport relies on the coupling of the channel to a molecular BEC, with diatomic molecules of fermionic atoms. Our results are obtained using a Floquet-Redfield master equation that accounts for an exact treatment of the interaction between atoms in the …
We study the spectrum of density fluctuations in the ultra-cold gas of neutral atoms, confined in a magneto-optical trap. We determine the corresponding amplitude and spectra of laser light scattered by this medium. We derive an expression for the dynamical structure function, by using a test particle method. We propose to use the collective laser scattering as a diagnostic method for the microscopic properties of the ultra-cold matter. This will also allow us to check on the atomic correlations which are mediated by the collective mean field inside the gas.
We present a nonperturbative treatment of coherent backscattering of intense laser light from cold atoms, and predict a nonvanishing backscattering signal even at very large intensities, due to the constructive (self-)interference of inelastically scattered photons.
By using the Floquet eigenstates, we derive a formula to calculate the high-harmonic components of the electric current (HHC) in the setup where a monochromatic laser field is turned on at some time. On the basis of this formulation, we study the HHC spectrum of electrons on a one-dimensional chain with the staggered potential to study the effect of multiple sites in the unit cell such as the systems with charge density wave (CDW) order. With the help of the solution for the Floquet eigenstates, we analytically show that two plateaus of different origins emerge in the HHC spectrum. The widths …
Proposal for realizing quantum-spin systems on a two-dimensional square lattice with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction by Floquet engineering using Rydberg atoms
With a specific choice of laser parameters resulting into a so-called exceptional point in the wavelength-intensity plane, it is possible to produce the coalescence of two Floquet resonances describing the photodissociation of the molecule Na$_2$, which is one of the candidates for molecular cooling. Appropriately tuning laser parameters, following a contour around the exceptional point, the resonances exchange their labels. This represents a laser control of the vibrational transfer from one field-free state to another, through an adiabatic transport involving these resonances. The proportion…
We present spectroscopic experiments and theory of a quantum dot driven bichromatically by two strong coherent lasers. In particular, we explore the regime where the drive strengths are substantial enough to merit a general non-perturbative analysis, resulting in a rich higher-order Floquet dressed-state energy structure. We show high resolution spectroscopy measurements with a variety of laser detunings performed on a single InGaAs quantum dot, with the resulting features well explained with a time-dependent quantum master equation and Floquet analysis. Notably, driving the quantum dot resona…
A many mode Floquet theory (MMFT) formalism is applied to study the interaction of a polychromatic rf-field with cold atoms trapped in a quadrupole magnetic trap. In this work, the validity of MMFT approach is first established by comparing its results with those of the previously used formalisms for the cases of single and two frequency rf-fields. We have then used the MMFT formalism to calculate the eigen-energies and transition probabilities for atoms in the quadrupole trap and interacting with a polychromatic rf-field. This composite atom-field system has shown some exquisite features such…
We give a detailed derivation of the master equation description of the coherent backscattering of laser light by cold atoms. In particular, our formalism accounts for the nonperturbative nonlinear response of the atoms when the injected intensity saturates the atomic transition. Explicit expressions are given for total and elastic backscattering intensities in the different polarization channels, for the simplest nontrivial multiple scattering scenario of intense laser light multiply scattering from two randomly placed atoms.
Characterizing and controlling matter driven far from equilibrium represents a major challenge for science and technology. Here we develop a theory for the optical absorption of electronic materials driven far from equilibrium by resonant and non-resonant lasers. In it, the interaction between matter and the driving light is treated exactly through a Floquet analysis, while the effects of the probing light are captured to first order in perturbation theory. The resulting equations are reminiscent to those for equilibrium absorption but with the Floquet modes playing the role of the pristine ei…
We discuss a method to select the velocities of ultra-cold atoms with a modified Fabry-Perot type of device made of two effective barriers and a well created, respectively, by blue and red detuned lasers. The laser parameters may be used to select the peak and width of the transmitted velocity window. In particular, lowering the central well provides a peak arbitrarily close to zero velocity having a minimum but finite width. The low-energy atomic scattering off this laser device is parameterized and approximate formulae are found to describe and explain its behaviour.
We investigate the Gross-Pitaevskii equation for a classically chaotic system, which describes an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate confined in an optical lattice and driven by a spatiotemporal periodic laser field. It is demonstrated that the exact Floquet states appear when the external time-dependent potential is balanced by the nonlinear mean-field interaction. The balance region of parameters is divided into a phase-continuing region and a phase-jumping one. In the latter region, the Floquet states are spatiotemporal vortices of nontrivial phase structures and zero-density cores. Due to the…
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 demonstrate the emergence of a non-equilibrium superradiant phase in the dissipative Rabi-Dicke model. This phase is characterized by a photonic steady state that oscillates with a frequency close to the cavity frequency, in contrast to the constant photonic steady state of the equilibrium superradiant phase in the Dicke model. We relate this superradiant phase to the population inversion of Floquet states by introducing a Schwinger representation of the driven two-level systems in the cavity. This inversion is depleted near Floquet energies that are resonant with the cavity frequency to su…
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…
We deduce the coherent backscattering signal from two distant laser-driven atoms using single-atom equations. In contrast to the standard master equation treatment, this new approach is suitable for the generalization to a large number of atomic scatterers.
Floquet-engineering unveiled by high-harmonic generation
King’s College London（伦敦国王学院）；ELI Beamlines Facility, the Extreme Light Infrastructure ERIC（极轻基础设施欧洲研究联合体 ELI光束线设施）；Czech Technical University in Prague（布拉格捷克理工大学）；CELIA, CNRS-CEA-Université de Bordeaux（CELIA实验室，法国国家科学研究中心-法国原子能和替代能源委员会-波尔多大学）
We present a diagrammatic derivation of the coherent backscattering spectrum from two two-level atoms using the pump-probe approach, wherein the multiple scattering signal is deduced from single-atom responses, and provide a physical interpretation of the single-atom building blocks.
We consider the process of cold emission of electrons from a metal in a strong low-frequency laser field. An expression is obtained for the electron spectrum with allowance for their rescattering at the metal surface as a result of an extension of the Fowler-Nordheim theory and modification of the Simplemen model. The numerically simulated features of the electron spectrum are similar to the ATI spectra for atoms and have the same form as the experimental surface emission dependencies for a metal.
The paper investigates cold molecules formation in the photoassociation of two cold atoms by a strong laser pulse applied at short interatomic distances, which lead to a molecular dynamics taking place in the light-induced (adiabatic) potentials. A two electronic states model in the cesium dimer is used to analyse the effects of this strong coupling regime and to show specific results: i) acceleration of the ground state population to the inner zone due to a non-impulsive regime of coupling at short and intermediate interatomic distances; ii) formation of cold molecules in strongly bound level…
We have designed and implemented a straightforward method to deterministically measure the temperature of the selected segment of a cold atom ensemble, and we have also developed an upgrade in the form of nondestructive thermometry. The essence is to monitor the thermal expansion of the targeted cold atoms after labeling them through manipulating the internal states, and the nondestructive property relies upon the nearly lossless detection via driving a cycling transition. For cold atoms subject to isotropic laser cooling, this method has the unique capability of addressing only the atoms on t…
Photo-induced transition probabilities in graphene are studied theoretically from the viewpoint of Floquet theory. Conduction band populations are computed for a strongly, periodically driven graphene sheet under linear, circular, and elliptic polarization. Features of the momentum spectrum of excited quasi-particles can be directly related to the avoided crossing of the Floquet quasi-energy levels. In particular, the impact of the ellipticity and the strength of the laser excitation on the avoided crossing structure -- and on the resulting transition probabilities -- is studied. It is shown t…
