No Arabic abstract
Weyl functions conveniently describe the evolution of wave coherences in periodic or quadratic potentials. In this work we use Weyl functions to study the ``Talbot-Lau effect in a time-domain matter-wave interferometer. A ``displacement diagram is introduced to analyze and calculate the matter-wave interference for an atomic cloud in a quadratic potential that interacts with a sequence of short optical standing wave pulses producing an atomic grating echo. Unlike previous treatments, this new approach allows the atomic ensemble to have an arbitrary initial phase-space distribution, and the standing wave grating vectors to span three dimensions. Several examples are discussed to illustrate the convenience of the diagrammatic technique including the following: a two-dimensional Talbot-Lau effect, the shift in the echo time and the recoil phase for the interferometer perturbed by a quadratic potential; and the realization of a time-domain ``Lau effect using a pulsed harmonic potential. The diagrammatic technique is applicable to diffraction gratings with arbitrary grating transmission functions. We conclude the paper with a general discussion on the Weyl function representations of matter-wave coherence, and relate the conservation of matter-wave coherence with the conservation of purity that distinguishes decoherence effects from dephasing effects.
We present a theoretical framework to describe the effects of decoherence on matter waves in Talbot-Lau interferometry. Using a Wigner description of the stationary beam the loss of interference contrast can be calculated in closed form. The formulation includes both the decohering coupling to the environment and the coherent interaction with the grating walls. It facilitates the quantitative distinction of genuine quantum interference from the expectations of classical mechanics. We provide realistic microscopic descriptions of the experimentally relevant interactions in terms of the bulk properties of the particles and show that the treatment is equivalent to solving the corresponding master equation in paraxial approximation.
Recent progress in matter-wave interferometry aims to directly probe the quantum properties of matter on ever increasing scales. However, in order to perform interferometric experiments with massive mesoscopic objects, taking into account the constraints on the experimental set-ups, the point-like particle approximation needs to be cast aside. In this work, we consider near-field interferometry based on the Talbot effects with a single optical grating for large spherical particles beyond the point-particle approximation. We account for the suppression of the coherent grating effect and, at the same time, the enhancement of the decoherence effects due to scattering and absorption of grating photons.
We present kinematically complete theoretical calculations and experiments for transfer ionization in H$^++$He collisions at 630 keV/u. Experiment and theory are compared on the most detailed level of fully differential cross sections in the momentum space. This allows us to unambiguously identify contributions from the shake-off and two-step-2 mechanisms of the reaction. It is shown that the simultaneous electron transfer and ionization is highly sensitive to the quality of a trial initial-state wave function.
We show that complex PT-symmetric photonic lattices can lead to a new class of self-imaging Talbot effects. For this to occur, we find that the input field pattern, has to respect specific periodicities which are dictated by the symmetries of the system. While at the spontaneous PT-symmetry breaking point, the image revivals occur at Talbot lengths governed by the characteristics of the passive lattice, at the exact phase it depends on the gain and loss parameter thus allowing one to control the imaging process.
Based on quantum origin of the universe, in this article we find that the universal wave function can be far richer than the superposition of many classical worlds studied by Everett. By analyzing the more general universal wave function and its unitary evolutions, we find that on small scale we can obtain Newtons law of universal gravity, while on the scale of galaxies we naturally derive gravitational effects corresponding to dark matter, without modifying any physical principles or hypothesizing the existence of new elementary particles. We find that an auxiliary function having formal symmetry is very useful to predict the evolution of the classical information in the universal wave function.