Quantum interference is shown to deliver a means of regulating the diffraction pattern of a thermal atomic beam interacting with two standing wave electric fields. Parameters have been identified to enhance the diffraction probability of one momentum component over the others, with specific application to Rb atoms.
We study the effects of strong inter-particle interaction on diffraction of a Bose-Einstein condensate of $^6Li_2$ molecules from a periodic potential created by pulses of a far detuned optical standing wave. For short pulses we observe the standard Kapitza-Dirac diffraction, with the contrast of the diffraction pattern strongly reduced for very large interactions due to interaction dependent loss processes. For longer pulses diffraction shows the characteristic for matter waves impinging on an array of tubes and coherent channeling transport. We observe a slowing down of the time evolution go…
Owing to the ac-Stark effect, the lineshape of a weak optical transition in an atomic beam can become significantly distorted, when driven by an intense standing wave field. We use an Yb atomic beam to study the lineshape of the 6s2 1S0 -> 5d6s 3D1 transition, which is excited with light circulating in a Fabry-Perot resonator. We demonstrate two methods to avoid the distortion of the transition profile. Of these, one relies on the operation of the resonator in multiple longitudinal modes, and the other in multiple transverse modes.
We report on theoretical and numerical study of propagation of atomic beams crossing a detuned standing-wave laser beam in the geometric optics limit. The interplay between external and internal atomic degrees of freedom is used to manipulate the atomic motion along the optical axis by light. By adjusting the atom-laser detuning, we demonstrate how to focus, split and scatter atomic beams in a real experiment. The novel effect of chaotic scattering of atoms at a regular near-resonant standing wave is found numerically and explained qualitatively. Some applications of the effects found are disc…
We investigate the atomic diffractions of a Bose-Einstein condensate in quantized light fields. Situations in which the light fields are in number states or coherent states are studied theoretically. Analytical derivation and numerical calculation are carried out to simulate the dynamics of the atomic motion. In condition that atoms are scattered by light in the number states with imbalanced photon number distribution, the atomic transitions between different momentum modes would sensitively depend on the transition order and the photon number distribution. The number-state-nature of the light…
A simple scheme is presented for realizing robust optically controlled quantum gates for scalable atomic quantum processors by driving the qubits with optical standing waves. Atoms localized close to the antinodes of the standing wave can realize phase-controlled quantum operations that are potentially more than an order of magnitude less sensitive to the local optical phase and atomic motion than corresponding travelling wave configurations. The scheme is compatible with robust optimal control techniques and spatial qubit addressing in atomic arrays to realize phase controlled operations with…
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 …
In a recent experiment [1], it was observed that a sequence of two standing wave square pulses can split a BEC at rest into +/- 2 h_bar k diffraction orders with almost 100% efficiency. By truncating the Raman-Nath equations to a 2-state model, we provide an intuitive picture that explains this double square pulse beamsplitter scheme. We further show it is possible to optimize a standingwave multi square pulse sequence to efficiently diffract an atom at rest to symmetric superposition of +/- 2n h_bar k diffraction order with n>1. The approach is considered to be qualitatively different from th…
We propose a scheme to create high-contrast, periodic atom density distributions having period $λ/2n$ using the Talbot effect, where $% λ$ is the wave length of the optical fields that scatter the atoms and $n$ is a positive integer. This {\em filtered Talbot lens} is comprised of two standing-wave optical fields. An atomic beam propagates perpendicular to the fields. The first field, which is far-detuned from the atomic transition frequency, acts as an array of lenses that focuses the atoms. The second field, positioned at the atom optical focus of the first, is resonant with the atomic trans…
We develop a versatile theoretical approach to the study of cold-atom diffractive scattering from light-field gratings by combining calculations of the optical near-field, generated by evanescent waves close to the surface of periodic nanostructured arrays, together with advanced atom wavepacket propagation on this optical potential.
Atom-surface interactions can significantly modify the intensity and phase of atom de Broglie waves diffracted by a silicon nitride grating. This affects the operation of a material grating as a coherent beam splitter. The phase shift induced by diffraction is measured by comparing the relative phases of serveral interfering paths in a Mach-Zehnder Na atom interferometer formed by three material gratings. The values of the diffraction phases are consistent with a simple model which includes a van der Waals atom-surface interaction between the Na atoms and the silicon nitride grating bars.
In a retroreflective scheme atomic Raman diffraction adopts some of the properties of Bragg diffraction due to additional couplings to off-resonant momenta. As a consequence, double Raman diffraction has to be performed in a Bragg-type regime. Taking advantage of this regime, double Raman allows for resonant higher-order diffraction. We study theoretically the case of third-order diffraction and compare it to first order as well as a sequence of first-order pulses giving rise to the same momentum transfer as the third-order pulse. In fact, third-order diffraction constitutes a competitive tool…
In atom optics a material structure is commonly regarded as an amplitude mask for atom waves. However, atomic diffraction patterns formed using material gratings indicate that material structures also operate as phase masks. In this study a well collimated beam of sodium atoms is used to illuminate a silicon nitride grating with a period of 100 nm. During passage through the grating slots atoms acquire a phase shift due to the van der Waals interaction with the grating walls. As a result the relative intensities of the matter-wave diffraction peaks deviate from those expected for a purely abso…
We demonstrate the realization of a new scheme for cold atom gravimetry based on the use of double diffraction beamsplitters recently demonstrated in \cite{Leveque}, where the use of two retro-reflected Raman beams allows symmetric diffraction in $\pm \hbar k_{eff}$ momenta. Though in principle restricted to the case of zero Doppler shift, for which the two pairs of Raman beams are simultaneously resonant, we demonstrate that such diffraction pulses can remain efficient on atoms with non zero velocity, such as in a gravimeter, when modulating the frequency of one of the two Raman laser sources…
Bragg diffraction of an atomic wave packet in a retroreflective geometry with two counterpropagating optical lattices exhibits a light shift induced phase. We show that the temporal shape of the light pulse determines the behavior of this phase shift: In contrast to Raman diffraction, Bragg diffraction with Gaussian pulses leads to a significant suppression of the intrinsic phase shift due to a scaling with the third power of the inverse Doppler frequency. However, for box-shaped laser pulses, the corresponding shift is twice as large as for Raman diffraction. Our results are based on approxim…
We have studied atomic diffraction at normal incidence from an evanescent standing wave with a high resolution using velocity selective Raman transitions. We have observed up to 3 resolved orders of diffraction, which are well accounted for by a scalar diffraction theory. In our experiment the transverse coherence length of the source is greater than the period of the diffraction grating.
We propose a method to characterize the ultra-narrow momentum distribution of atomic gases by employing a standing-wave light-pulse sequences beam-splitter. The mechanism of beam splitting is analyzed in detail, and the influence of a finite-width momentum distribution on the population of each diffraction order is given. The temperature of ultracold atomic gases can be calibrated by measuring the ratio of population in different diffraction orders after double standing-wave light-pulses. We obtain analytical expressions for two typical cases, and demonstrate phase space evolution in the whole…
We present a simple method to include the effects of diffraction into the description of a light-atomic ensemble quantum interface in the context of collective variables. Carrying out a scattering calculation we single out the purely geometrical effect. We apply our method to the experimentally relevant case of Gaussian shaped atomic samples stored in single beam optical dipole traps and probed by a Gaussian beam. We derive analytical scaling relations for the effect of the interaction geometry and compare our findings to results from 1-dimensional models of light propagation.
We report on a new technique to split an atomic beam coherently with an easily adjustable splitting angle. In our experiment metastable helium atoms in the |{1s2s}^3S_1 M=1> state diffract from a polarization gradient light field formed by counterpropagating σ^+ and σ^- polarized laser beams in the presence of a homogeneous magnetic field. In the near-adiabatic regime, energy conservation allows the resonant exchange between magnetic energy and kinetic energy. As a consequence, symmetric diffraction of |M=0> or |M=-1> atoms in a single order is achieved, where the order can be chosen freely by…
A comparison of Fraunhofer-type diffraction from an atomic single-slit and a molecular double-slit
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research(塔塔基础研究所);Jiaxing University(嘉兴学院);Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics(应用物理与计算数学研究所);HUN-REN Institute for Nuclear Research (ATOMKI)(匈牙利研究与教育网络核研究所 (ATOMKI));UPES(尤佩斯大学)
We present a precision gravimeter based on coherent Bragg diffraction of freely falling cold atoms. Traditionally, atomic gravimeters have used stimulated Raman transitions to separate clouds in momentum space by driving transitions between two internal atomic states. Bragg interferometers utilize only a single internal state, and can therefore be less susceptible to environmental perturbations. Here we show that atoms extracted from a magneto-optical trap using an accelerating optical lattice are a suitable source for a Bragg atom interferometer, allowing efficient beamsplitting and subsequen…
We apply a Bloch-bands approach to the analysis of pulsed optical standing wave diffractive elements in optics and interferometry with ultracold atoms. We verify our method by comparison to a series of experiments with Bose-Einstein condensates. The approach provides accurate Rabi frequencies for diffraction pulses and is particularly useful for the analysis and control of diffraction phases, an important systematic effect in precision atom interferometry. Utilizing this picture, we also demonstrate a method to determine atomic band structure in an optical lattice through a measurement of phas…
Time-resolved femtosecond x-ray diffraction patterns from laser-excited molecular iodine are used to create a movie of intramolecular motion with time and space resolution of $30~$fs and $0.3$ Å. The high spatial fidelity is due to interference between the moving excitation and the static initial charge distribution. This x-ray interference has not been employed to image internal motion in molecules before. The initial state is used as the local oscillator for heterodyne amplification of the excited charge distribution to retrieve real-space movies of atomic motion on Ångstrom and femtosecond …
In a standing wave of light, a difference in spatial distributions of multipolar atom-field interactions may alter the definition of the magic wavelength to minimize the uncertainty of optical lattice clocks. We show that the magic wavelength can be determined so as to eliminate the spatial mismatch in electric dipole, magnetic dipole, and electric quadrupole interactions for specific combinations of standing waves. Experimental prospects of such lattices used with a blue magic wavelength are discussed.
IIn this paper we demonstrate a new scheme for Raman transitions which realize a symmetric momentum-space splitting of $4 \hbar k$, deflecting the atomic wave-packets into the same internal state. Combining the advantages of Raman and Bragg diffraction, we achieve a three pulse state labelled interferometer, intrinsically insensitive to the main systematics and applicable to all kind of atomic sources. This splitting scheme can be extended to $4N \hbar k$ momentum transfer by a multipulse sequence and is implemented on a $8 \hbar k$ interferometer. We demonstrate the area enhancement by measur…
A brief review of the manifestations of classical chaos observed in atomic systems is presented. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of atomic spectra by periodic orbit-type theories. For diamagnetic non-hydrogenic Rydberg atoms, the dynamical explanation for observed spectral features has been disputed. By building on our previous work on the photoabsorption spectrum, we show how, by the addition of diffractive terms, the spectral fluctuations in the energy level spectrum of general Rydberg atoms can be obtained with remarkable precision from the Gutzwiller trace formula. This provid…
An obvious determination of the acceleration of gravity g can be deduced from the measurement of the velocity of falling atoms using a pi-pi pulses sequence of stimulated Raman transitions. By using a vertical standing wave to hold atoms against gravity, we expect to improve the relative accuracy by increasing the upholding time in the gravity field and to minimize the systematic errors induced by inhomogeneous fields, owing to the very small spatial amplitude of the atomic center-of-mass wavepacket periodic motion. We also propose to use such an experimental setup nearby a Watt balance. By ex…
We present a theoretical justification for a method of extracting of supplementary information for the phase retrieval procedure taken from diffraction of fs-pulses from X-ray Free Electron Laser facilities. The approach is based on numerical simulation of the dynamics of the electron density in the crystal composed of different atoms in the unit cell, namely a bi-atomic crystal containing heavy and light atoms. It is shown that evaluation of diffraction intensities measured by means of different values of XFEL pulse parameters enables to find absolute values of structure factors for both type…
We consider a basic model of the lossless interaction between a moving two-level atom and a standing-wave single-mode laser field. Classical treatment of the translational atomic motion provides the semiclassical Hamilton-Schrodinger equations which are a 5D nonlinear dynamical system with two integrals of motion. The atomic dynamics can be regular or chaotic in dependence on values of the control parameters, the atom-field detuning and recoil frequency. We develop a semiclassical theory of the chaotic atomic transport in terms of a random walk of the atomic electric dipole moment $u$. Based o…
We report a novel experimental technique for the comparison of ionization processes in ultrafast laser pulses irrespective of pulse ellipticity. Multiple ionization of xenon by 50 fs 790 nm, linearly and circularly polarized laser pulses is observed over the intensity range 10 TW/cm^2 to 10 PW/cm^2 using Effective Intensity Matching (EIM), which is coupled with Intensity Selective Scanning (ISS) to recover the geometry-independent probability of ionization. Such measurements, made possible by quantifying diffraction effects in the laser focus, are compared directly to theoretical predictions o…
Atom interferometers are a useful tool for precision measurements of fundamental physical phenomena, ranging from local gravitational field strength to the atomic fine structure constant. In such experiments, it is desirable to implement a high momentum transfer "beam-splitter," which may be achieved by inducing quantum resonance in a finite-temperature laser-driven atomic gas. We use Monte Carlo simulations to investigate these quantum resonances in the regime where the gas receives laser pulses of finite duration, and demonstrate that an $ε$-classical model for the dynamics of the gas atoms …
We demonstrate nanometer-scale spatial control of inter-atomic interactions in a Bose-Einstein condensate of ytterbium(Yb). A pulsed optical standing wave, tuned near an optical Feshbach resonance varies the s-wave scattering length continuously across the standing wave pattern. The modulated mean-field energy with a spatial period of every 278 nm is monitored by a diffraction pattern in a time-of-flight image. We observe a wide scattering length control of up to 160 nm. The demonstrated spatial modulation of the scattering length proves that the high resolution control of atomic interactions …
We consider resonant dynamics in a dilute atomic gas falling under gravity through a periodically pulsed standing-wave laser field. Our numerical calculations are based on a Monte Carlo method for an incoherent mixture of noninteracting plane waves, and show that quantum resonances are highly sensitive to the relative acceleration between the atomic gas and the pulsed optical standing wave. For particular values of the atomic acceleration, we observe fractional resonances. We investigate the effect of the initial atomic momentum width on the fractional resonances, and quantify the sensitivity …
Precise knowledge of optical lattice depths is important for a number of areas of atomic physics, most notably in quantum simulation, atom interferometry and for the accurate determination of transition matrix elements. In such experiments, lattice depths are often measured by exposing an ultracold atomic gas to a series of off-resonant laser-standing-wave pulses, and fitting theoretical predictions for the fraction of atoms found in each of the allowed momentum states by time of flight measurement, after some number of pulses. We present a full analytic model for the time evolution of the ato…
We study the generation of atom vortex beams in the case where an atomic wave-packet, moving in free space, is diffracted from a properly tailored light mask with a spiral transverse profile. We show how such a diffraction scheme could lead to the production of an atomic Ferris wheel beam.
We report a clear evidence of atomic fractals in the nonlinear motion of a two-level atom in a standing-wave microcavity. Fractal-like structures, typical for chaotic scattering, are numerically found in the dependencies of outgoing positions and momenta of scattered atoms on their ingoing values and in the dependence of exit times of cold atoms on their initial momenta in the generic semiclassical models of cavity QED (1) with atoms in a far-detuned amplitude (phase)-modulated standing wave and (2) with coupled atomic external and internal degrees of freedom. Tiny interplay between all the de…
Group-theoretical approach is applied to study behavior of lossless two-level atoms in a standing-wave laser field. Due to the recoil effect, the internal and external atomic degrees of freedom become coupled. The internal dynamics is described quantum mechanically in terms of the SU(2) group parameters. The evolution operator is found in an explicit way after solving a single ODE for one of the group parameters. The translational motion in a standing wave is governed by the classical Hamilton equations which are coupled to the SU(2) group equations. It is shown that the full set of equations …
Interactions between atoms and light fields are usually described in the electric-dipole approximation. We show that electric-quadrupole terms are important in the Kapitza-Dirac arrangement for light gratings on resonance with a quadrupole atomic transition. We derive the diffraction patterns, which in some cases are experimentally verifiable with the same techniques used with dipole transitions.