Trapping and coherent manipulation of a Rydberg atom on a microfabricated device: a proposal

We propose to apply atom-chip techniques to the trapping of a single atom in a circular Rydberg state. The small size of microfabricated structures will allow for trap geometries with microwave cut-off frequencies high enough to inhibit the spontaneous emission of the Rydberg atom, paving the way to complete control of both external and internal degrees of freedom over very long times. Trapping is achieved using carefully designed electric fields, created by a simple pattern of electrodes. We show that it is possible to excite, and then trap, one and only one Rydberg atom from a cloud of ground state atoms confined on a magnetic atom chip, itself integrated with the Rydberg trap. Distinct internal states of the atom are simultaneously trapped, providing us with a two-level system extremely attractive for atom-surface and atom-atom interaction studies. We describe a method for reducing by three orders of magnitude dephasing due to Stark shifts, induced by the trapping field, of the internal transition frequency. This allows for, in combination with spin-echo techniques, maintenance of an internal coherence over times in the second range. This method operates via a controlled light shift rendering the two internal states’ Stark shifts almost identical. We thoroughly identify and account for sources of imperfection in order to verify at each step the realism of our proposal.     

Editorial

The two Editors-in-Chief of EPJ D are now Tito Arecchi and Jean-Michel Raimond. Ingolf Hertel's term came to its end and he will be now acting as an External Advisor. He should be warmly thanked for the work he accomplished during the hard times of the journal's creation. The present success of EPJ D owes a lot to his dedication and to the continued efforts of Gilbert Grynberg, whose untimely death has been a loss for physics as well as for this journal. Jean-Michel Raimond is at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie and the Institut Universitaire de France, in Paris. His research is performed at the Laboratoire Kastler Brossel of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, on cavity quantum electrodynamics, at the fulcrum between fundamental quantum mechanics studies and the development of quantum information techniques. Published online 5 May 2003     

Temporal-envelope constancy of speech in rooms and the perceptual weighting of frequency bands

Three experiments measured constancy in speech perception, using natural-speech messages or noise-band vocoder versions of them. The eight vocoder-bands had equally log-spaced center-frequencies and the shapes of corresponding "auditory" filters. Consequently, the bands had the temporal envelopes that arise in these auditory filters when the speech is played. The "sir" or "stir" test-words were distinguished by degrees of amplitude modulation, and played in the context; "next you'll get _ to click on." Listeners identified test-words appropriately, even in the vocoder conditions where the speech had a "noise-like" quality. Constancy was assessed by comparing the identification of test-words with low or high levels of room reflections across conditions where the context had either a low or a high level of reflections. Constancy was obtained with both the natural and the vocoded speech, indicating that the effect arises through temporal-envelope processing. Two further experiments assessed perceptual weighting of the different bands, both in the test word and in the context. The resulting weighting functions both increase monotonically with frequency, following the spectral characteristics of the test-word's [s]. It is suggested that these two weighting functions are similar because they both come about through the perceptual grouping of the test-word's bands.     

Stabilization of nonclassical states of the radiation field in a cavity by reservoir engineering

We propose an engineered reservoir inducing the relaxation of a cavity field towards nonclassical states. It is made up of two-level atoms crossing the cavity one at a time. Each atom-cavity interaction is first dispersive, then resonant, then dispersive again. The reservoir pointer states are those produced by an effective Kerr Hamiltonian acting on a coherent field. We thereby stabilize squeezed states and quantum superpositions of multiple coherent components in a cavity having a finite damping time. This robust decoherence protection method could be implemented in state-of-the-art experiments.     

Investigation of the quantitative properties of the quadrupole orthogonal acceleration time-of-flight mass spectrometer with electrospray ionisation using 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine

This paper describes the investigation of the potential of a quadrupole orthogonal acceleration time-of-flight mass spectrometer (Q-TOF) equipped with an atmospheric pressure ionisation interface for quantitative measurements of small molecules separated by reversed phase liquid chromatography. To this end, the detection limits and linear dynamic range in particular were studied in an LC/MS/MS experiment using 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine standards and 3,4-methylenedioxyethylamphetamine for internal standardisation. In a second phase, the experiment was repeated with real biological extracts (whole blood, serum, and vitreous humour). A calibration for 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine and its metabolite 3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine was prepared in each of these matrices again using 3,4-methylenedioxyethylamphetamine as internal standard. The resulting quantitative data were compared with those obtained by liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection for the same extracts. The Q-TOF results revealed excellent sensitivity and a linear dynamic range of nearly four decades (2-10 000 pg on-column, r(2) = 0.9998, 1/x weighting). Furthermore, all the calibration curves prepared in biological material were superimposable, LC/MS/MS and LC-fluorescence, and the quantitative results for actual samples compared very favourably. It was concluded that the Q-TOF achieves a linear dynamic range for quantitative LC/MS/MS work exceeding that of fluorescence detection and at much better absolute sensitivity. Copyright 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Rabi oscillations revival induced by time reversal: a test of mesoscopic quantum coherence

Using an echo technique proposed by Morigi et al., we have time-reversed the atom-field interaction in a cavity quantum electrodynamics experiment. The collapse of the atomic Rabi oscillation in a coherent field is reversed, resulting in an induced revival signal. The amplitude of this "echo" is sensitive to nonunitary decoherence processes. Its observation demonstrates the existence of a mesoscopic quantum superposition of field states in the cavity between the collapse and the revival times.