No Arabic abstract
In the field of ultracold atoms in optical lattices a plethora of phenomena governed by the hopping energy $J$ and the interaction energy $U$ have been studied in recent years. However, the trapping potential typically present in these systems sets another energy scale and the effects of the corresponding time scale on the quantum dynamics have rarely been considered. Here we study the quantum collapse and revival of a lattice Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in an arbitrary spatial potential, focusing on the special case of harmonic confinement. Analyzing the time evolution of the single-particle density matrix, we show that the physics arising at the (temporally) recurrent quantum phase revivals is essentially captured by an effective single particle theory. This opens the possibility to prepare exotic non-equilibrium condensate states with a large degree of freedom by engineering the underlying spatial lattice potential.
Ultracold systems offer an unprecedented level of control of interactions between atoms. An important challenge is to achieve a similar level of control of the interactions between photons. Towards this goal, we propose a realization of a novel Lennard-Jones-like potential between photons coupled to the Rydberg states via electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). This potential is achieved by tuning Rydberg states to a F{o}rster resonance with other Rydberg states. We consider few-body problems in 1D and 2D geometries and show the existence of self-bound clusters (molecules) of photons. We demonstrate that for a few-body problem, the multi-body interactions have a significant impact on the geometry of the molecular ground state. This leads to phenomena without counterparts in conventional systems: For example, three photons in 2D preferentially arrange themselves in a line-configuration rather than in an equilateral-triangle configuration. Our result opens a new avenue for studies of many-body phenomena with strongly interacting photons.
Using the quantum collapse and revival phenomenon of a Bose--Einstein condensate in three-dimensional optical lattices, the atom number statistics on each lattice site are experimentally investigated. We observe an interaction driven time evolution of on-site number fluctuations in a constant lattice potential with the collapse and revival time ratio as the figure of merit. Through a shortcut loading procedure, we prepare a three-dimensional array of coherent states with Poissonian number fluctuations. The following dynamics clearly show the interaction effect on the evolution of the number fluctuations from Poissonian to sub-Poissonian. Our method can be used to create squeezed states which are important in precision measurement.
We study the interplay of dipole-dipole interaction and optical lattice (OL) potential of varying depths on the formation and dynamics of vortices in rotating dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates. By numerically solving the time-dependent quasi-two dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii equation, we analyse the consequence of dipole-dipole interaction on vortex nucleation, vortex structure, critical rotation frequency and number of vortices for a range of OL depths. Rapid creation of vortices has been observed due to supplementary symmetry breaking provided by the OL in addition to the dipolar interaction. Also the critical rotation frequency decreases with an increase in the depth of the OL. Further, at lower rotation frequencies the number of vortices increases on increasing the depth of OL while it decreases at higher rotation frequencies. This variation in the number of vortices has been confirmed by calculating the rms radius, which shrinks in deep optical lattice at higher rotation frequencies.
We investigate the occurrence of rotons in a quadrupolar Bose-Einstein condensate confined to two dimensions. Depending on the particle density, the ratio of the contact and quadrupole-quadrupole interactions, and the alignment of the quadrupole moments with respect to the confinement plane, the dispersion relation features two or four point-like roton minima, or one ring-shaped minimum. We map out the entire parameter space of the roton behavior and identify the instability regions. We propose to observe the exotic rotons by monitoring the characteristic density wave dynamics resulting from a short local perturbation, and discuss the possibilities to detect the predicted effects in state-of-the-art experiments with ultracold homonuclear molecules.
A simple and efficient method to create gap solitons is proposed in a spin-orbit-coupled spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate. We find that a free expansion along the spin-orbit coupling dimension can generate two moving gap solitons, which are identified from a generalized massive Thirring model. The dynamics of gap solitons can be controlled by adjusting spin-orbit coupling parameters.