Correlations and counting statistics of an atom laser

We demonstrate time-resolved counting of single atoms extracted from a weakly interacting Bose-Einstein condensate of 87Rb atoms. The atoms are detected with a high-finesse optical cavity and single atom transits are identified. An atom laser beam is formed by continuously output coupling atoms from the Bose-Einstein condensate. We investigate the full counting statistics of this beam and measure its second order correlation function g((2))(tau) in a Hanbury Brown-Twiss type experiment. For the monoenergetic atom laser we observe a constant correlation function g((2))(tau)=1.00 +/- 0.01 and an atom number distribution close to a Poissonian statistics. A pseudothermal atomic beam shows a bunching behavior and a Bose distributed counting statistics.     

Ground motion improvements in SPEAR3

SPEAR3 is a third-generation synchrotron light source storage ring, about 234 meters in circumference.To meet the beam stability requirement, our goal is to ultimately achieve an orbit variation(relative to the photon beam lines) of less than 10% of the beam size, which is about 1 micron in the vertical plane. Hydrostatic leveling system(HLS) measurements show that the height of the SPEAR3 tunnel floor can vary by tens of microns daily without thermal insulation improvements. We present an analysis of the HLS data that shows that adding thermal insulation to the concrete walls of the storage ring tunnel dramatically decreased diurnal tunnel floor motion.     

Time interval distributions of atoms in atomic beams

We report an experimental investigation of two-particle correlations between neutral atoms in a Hanbury Brown and Twiss experiment. Both an atom laser beam and a pseudo-thermal atomic beam are extracted from a Bose–Einstein condensate and the atom flux is measured with a single atom counter. We determine the conditional and the unconditional detection probabilities for the atoms in the beam and find good agreement with the theoretical predictions. PACS 03.75.Pp; 05.30.Jp; 07.77.Gx; 42.50.Pq     

Electron spin pumping of Rb atoms on He nanodroplets via nondestructive optical excitation

We measured laser-induced-fluorescence (LIF) and beam-depletion (BD) spectra of rubidium atoms (5S-5P transition) on the surface of superfluid helium nanodroplets (M-He_{N} with M=Rb). It is known that when M is a lighter alkali atom electronic excitation always leads to detachment of the excited atom (M;{*}). The dissociation energy, few tens cm;{-1}, comes either as photon excess energy or from the barrierless formation of a M;{*}-He exciplex. We observe that this picture does not hold when M=Rb and the photon excess energy is small: we are able to excite atoms without detaching them from the droplet, thanks to a barrier preventing formation of the exciplex. This system is ideally suited for optical spin pumping in a He nanodroplet, whose achievement we explicitly demonstrate in a pump-probe magnetic circular dichroism experiment.     

All-optical realization of an atom laser

We demonstrate an atom laser using all-optical techniques. A Bose-Einstein condensate of rubidium atoms is created by direct evaporative cooling in a quasistatic dipole trap realized with a single, tightly focused CO2-laser beam. An applied magnetic field gradient allows the formation of the condensate in a field-insensitive m(F)=0 spin projection only, which suppresses fluctuations of the chemical potential from stray magnetic fields. A collimated and monoenergetic beam of atoms is extracted from the Bose-Einstein condensate by continuously lowering the dipole trapping potential in a controlled way to form a novel type of atom laser.     

亚微米局域空心光束的产生及其在单原子囚禁与冷却中的应用理论研究

提出了一种采用单模光纤、环形二元相位板和微透镜组成的光束整形系统产生亚微米局域空心光束的方案. 根据瑞利-索莫菲衍射积分公式, 数值计算了微透镜焦平面附近的场分布, 详细研究了空心光束的暗斑尺寸与单模光纤模场半径和微透镜焦距的关系. 数值计算结果表明: 在微透镜焦平面附近光场分布近似对称, 在焦点处场强近似为零, 周围场强逐渐增大, 形成半径约为0.4 μm的三维封闭的球形空心光场区域, 即亚微米局域空心光束. 当局域空心光束为蓝失谐时, 光场中的原子将被囚禁在光场最弱处. 若加上抽运光, 原子将受到蓝失谐局域空心光束与抽运光共同激发的强度梯度Sisyphus冷却. 本文利用该方案产生的亚微米局域空心光束构建单原子的囚禁与冷却器件, 并以单个⁸⁷Rb原子为例, 利用Mont-Carlo方法研究亚微米局域空心光束中单原子囚禁与强度梯度冷却的动力学过程, 结果表明利用该器件可以获得温度在5.8 μK量级的超冷单原子.     

Generating controllable atom-light entanglement with a Raman atom laser system

We introduce a scheme for creating continuous variable entanglement between an atomic beam and an optical field, by using squeezed light to outcouple atoms from a Bose-Einstein condensate via a Raman transition. We model the full multimode dynamics of the atom laser beam and the squeezed optical field and show that, with appropriate two-photon detuning and two-photon Rabi frequency, the transmitted light is entangled in amplitude and phase with the outcoupled atom laser beam. The degree of entanglement is controllable via changes in the two-photon Rabi frequency of the outcoupling process.     

Molecular-dynamics investigation of structural transformations of a Cu201 cluster in its melting process

We perform molecular-dynamics calculations to investigate the structural transformation of a copper cluster containing 201 atoms in its melting process within the framework of the embedded-atom method (EAM). Concerning melting, the obtained results reveal that its structural changes are different from those of larger-size clusters containing several hundreds or more atoms and smaller-size clusters containing tens of atoms. The melting process of this Cu₂₀₁ cluster involves three stages, firstly some atoms in inner regions of this cluster move into outer regions accompanying the structural transformation of the local atom packing, followed by the continuous interchange of atomic positions, and finally this cluster is wholly disordered. During the temperature increase, the structural changes of different regions determined by atom density profiles result in apparent increases in internal energy. By decomposing peaks of pair distribution functions (PDFs) according to the pair analysis (PA) technique, the local structural patterns are identified for the melting of this cluster.     

Structure formation in atom lithography using geometric collimation

Atom lithography uses standing wave light fields as arrays of lenses to focus neutral atom beams into line patterns on a substrate. Laser cooled atom beams are commonly used, but an atom beam source with a small opening placed at a large distance from a substrate creates atom beams which are locally geometrically collimated on the substrate. These beams have local offset angles with respect to the substrate. We show that this affects the height, width, shape, and position of the created structures. We find that simulated effects are partially obscured in experiments by substrate-dependent diffusion of atoms, while scattering and interference just above the substrate limit the quality of the standing wave lens. We find that in atom lithography without laser cooling the atom beam source geometry is imaged onto the substrate by the standing wave lens. We therefore propose using structured atom beam sources to image more complex patterns on subwavelength scales in a massively parallel way.     

Spectroscopy of He–Ne afterglow plasma

Implementation of promising control schemes for the intensity and position of X-ray-laser beams with a photon energy up to several tens of kiloelectronvolts requires knowledge of the angular dependence of cross sections for photoionization of noble gas atoms by hard photons. Estimates of quadrupole corrections to the cross section for photoionization of a Kr atom by X-ray photons with an energy of about 25 keV are reported in this paper. An analytic expression for the cross section of the process is parameterized in a compact form convenient for analyzing angular distributions with an arbitrary polarization of a photon beam.     

一种新颖的全光型表面原子(分子)漏斗

提出了一种产生全光型表面原子(分子)漏斗的新方案.采用红失谐高斯激光束照明由柱面透镜组成的光学系统，可在透镜焦平面附近产生横向漏斗形光强分布，以构成一表面光波导型原子漏斗.计算了漏斗的光强分布及其光学偶极势与偶极力分布.研究结果表明：该原子漏斗可用于冷原子(分子)的表面光波导、分束器和干涉仪以及微阱囚禁的有效装载，因而在集成原子光学及其原子芯片的研究中有着重要的应用. 关键词： 原子漏斗 分子漏斗 光学偶极势 原子芯片     

量子模型分析激光驻波原子透镜的像差

采用量子模型对近共振激光驻波原子透镜会聚Cr原子束、形成纳米量级光栅结构的物理过程进行数值模拟。为提高原子透镜的成像质量,对各种像差,如衍射像差、球差、色差、及原子束发散角、原子磁支能级、原子同位素等因素引起的像差进行了理论分析。模拟结果表明,相比粒子光学模型,量子模型能更加精确地描述原子会聚结果,且能解释原子在驻波光场中的衍射现象。在各种像差中,原子束发散角是最主要的因素,其影响大于衍射像差、球差、色差。原子的磁支能级、同位素等因素对像差影响很小,可以忽略不计。激光冷却准直原子束的方法可以减小束发散角引起的像差,压缩原子速度Vz分布范围的方法可以减小色差。     

Possible excitation of a fast sodium beam by laser irradiation

We present results of model calculations concerning the fraction of excited atoms obtained by laser irradiation of a fast sodium atom beam (100–400 eV kinetic energy). We calculated relative absorption probabilities as a function of the intersection angle between the two beams, the atom-beam energy, the atom-beam energy spread and the atom-beam divergence. The fraction of excited atoms that can be obtained at 300 eV is at least a factor of 5 smaller than in the case of a thermal beam, due to the divergence and energy spread of the fast atom beam giving rise to a large Doppler broadening.     

Photonic band gap of three dimensional magnetized photonic crystal with Voigt configuration

We study Bessel beams of two-level atoms that are driven by a linearly polarized laser field. Starting from the Schrödinger equation, we determine the states of two-level atoms in a plane-wave field respecting propagation directions both of the atom and the field. For such laser-driven two-level atoms, we construct Bessel beams beyond the typical paraxial approximation. We show that the probability density of these atomic beams obtains a non-trivial, Bessel-squared-type behavior and can be tuned under the special choice of the atom and laser parameters, such as the nuclear charge, atom velocity, laser frequency, and propagation geometry of the atom and laser beams. Moreover, we spatially and temporally characterize the beam of hydrogen and selected (neutral) alkali-metal atoms that carry non-zero orbital angular momentum (OAM). The proposed spatiotemporal Bessel states (i) are able to describe, in principle, twisted states of any two-level system which is driven by the radiation field and (ii) have potential applications in atomic and nuclear processes as well as in quantum communication.     

A slow gravity compensated atom laser

We report on a slow guided atom laser beam outcoupled from a Bose–Einstein condensate of ⁸⁷Rb atoms in a hybrid trap. The acceleration of the atom laser beam can be controlled by compensating the gravitational acceleration and we reach residual accelerations as low as 0.0027 g. The outcoupling mechanism allows for the production of a constant flux of 4.5×10⁶ atoms per second and due to transverse guiding we obtain an upper limit for the mean beam width of 4.6 μm. The transverse velocity spread is only 0.2 mm/s and thus an upper limit for the beam quality parameter is M ²=2.5. We demonstrate the potential of the long interrogation times available with this atom laser beam by measuring the trap frequency in a single measurement. The small beam width together with the long evolution and interrogation time makes this atom laser beam a promising tool for continuous interferometric measurements.     

Cold atom space clock with counter-propagating atoms

<正>We discuss the feasibility of realizing a cold atom space clock with counter-propagating cold atoms in microgravity.The design of the space clock is based on an atomic beam clock with Ramsey cavity,except that magneto-optical trap(MOT) is placed at each side.Cold atoms are launched simultaneously from the MOTs at both sides of the clock and they move at the counter-direction towards each other.The velocity of the launched atoms is precisely controlled to Ramsauer-Townsend resonance so that no additional collision frequency shift takes place.Such configuration can efficiently cancel the frequency shift resulting from cavity phase shift and increase the signal-to-noise ratio(SNR).     

Influence of the Si(111)-7×7 surface reconstruction on the diffusion of strontium atoms

The diffusion of strontium atoms on the Si(111) surface at room temperature has been investigated using scanning tunnel microscopy and simulation carried out in terms of the density functional theory and the Monte Carlo method. It has been found that the reconstruction of a clean silicon surface with a 7 × 7 structure has a profound effect on the diffusion process. The average velocity of motion of a strontium atom in a unit cell of the 7 × 7 structure has been calculated. The main diffusion paths of a strontium atom and the corresponding activation energies have been determined. It has been demonstrated that the formation of scanning tunnel microscope images of the Si(111)-7 × 7 surface with adsorbed strontium atoms is significantly affected by the shift of the electron density from the strontium atom to the nearest neighbor silicon adatoms in the 7 × 7 structure.     

Quantum gates and multiparticle entanglement by Rydberg excitation blockade and adiabatic passage

We propose to apply stimulated adiabatic passage to transfer atoms from their ground state into Rydberg excited states. Atoms a few micrometers apart experience a dipole-dipole interaction among Rydberg states that is strong enough to shift the atomic resonance and inhibit excitation of more than a single atom. We show that the adiabatic passage in the presence of this interaction between two atoms leads to robust creation of maximally entangled states and to two-bit quantum gates. For many atoms, the excitation blockade leads to an effective implementation of collective-spin and Jaynes-Cummings-like Hamiltonians, and we show that the adiabatic passage can be used to generate collective J_{x}=0 eigenstates and Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states of tens of atoms.     

Diffracted field distribution from a knife-edge truncated semi-Gaussian beam as an atomic （molecular） mirror

We investigate the diffraction characteristics of an incident Gaussian beam cut by a straight edge bounding a semi-infinite opaque plane using Kirchhoff scalar wave theory in the Fresnel limit, and propose a new and simple mirror scheme to reflect atoms by using the intensity gradient induced by a blue-detuned semi-Gaussian laser beam. The optical potential of the diffracted light of the knife-cut semi-Gaussian beam for $^{85}$Rb atom and its spontaneous emission probability are calculated and compared with the performance of the evanescent-wave mirror. Our study shows that the optical potential of the diffracted light of the semi-Gaussian beam is far higher than that of the evanescent light wave, and the maximum normal velocity of the incident atoms can be far greater than that of the evanescent light wave under the same parameters, so the blue-detuned semi-Gaussian beam, as a novel atomic mirror, can be used to efficiently reflect cold atoms with a normal velocity of greater than 1 m/s. However, the intensity gradient (force) of the diffracted light of the semi-Gaussian-beam is much smaller than that of the evanescent light wave, so its spontaneous emission probability is greater than that from the evanescent-wave when the normal velocity of incident atoms is greater.     

Nondestructive spatial heterodyne imaging of cold atoms

We demonstrate a new method for nondestructive imaging of laser-cooled atoms. This spatial heterodyne technique forms a phase image by interfering a strong reference laser beam with a weak probe beam that passes through the cold atom cloud. The figure of merit equals or exceeds that of phase-contrast imaging, and the technique can be used over a wider range of spatial scales. We show images of a dark-spot magneto-optic trap taken with imaging fluences as low as 61 pJ/cm(2) at a detuning of 11? , resulting in 0.0004 photons scattered per atom.