No Arabic abstract
We describe a simple and compact single-chamber apparatus for robust production of $^87$Rb Bose-Einstein condensates. The apparatus is built from off-the-shelf components and allows production of quasi-pure condensates of > $3times 10^5$ atoms in < 30 s. This is achieved using a hybrid trap created by a quadrupole magnetic field and a single red-detuned laser beam [Y.-J. Lin et al., Phys. Rev. A 79, 063631 (2009)]. In the same apparatus we also achieve condensation in an optically plugged quadrupole trap [K. B. Davis et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 3969 (1995)] and show that as little as 70 mW of plug-laser power is sufficient for condensation, making it viable to pursue this approach using inexpensive diode lasers. While very compact, our apparatus features sufficient optical access for complex experiments, and we have recently used it to demonstrate condensation in a uniform optical-box potential [A. Gaunt et al., arXiv:1212.4453 (2012)].
We present the production of dual-species Bose-Einstein condensates of $^{39}mathrm{K}$ and $^{87}mathrm{Rb}$. Preparation of both species in the $left| F=1,m_F=-1 rightrangle$ state enabled us to exploit a total of three Fesh-bach resonances which allows for simultaneous Feshbach tuning of the $^{39}mathrm{K}$ intraspecies and the $^{39}mathrm{K}$-$^{87}mathrm{Rb}$ interspecies scattering length. Thus dual-species Bose-Einstein condensates were produced by sympathetic cooling of $^{39}mathrm{K}$ with $^{87}mathrm{Rb}$. A dark spontaneous force optical trap was used for $^{87}mathrm{Rb}$, to reduce the losses in $^{39}mathrm{K}$ due to light-assisted collisions in the optical trapping phase, which can be of benefit for other dual-species experiments. The tunability of the scattering length was used to perform precision spectroscopy of the interspecies Feshbach resonance located at $117.56(2),mathrm{G}$ and to determine the width of the resonance to $1.21(5),mathrm{G}$ by rethermalization measurements. The transition region from miscible to immiscible dual-species condensates was investigated and the interspecies background scattering length was determined to $28.5,a_mathrm{0}$ using an empirical model. This paves the way for dual-species experiments with $^{39}mathrm{K}$ and $^{87}mathrm{Rb}$ BECs ranging from molecular physics to precision metrology.
Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) are macroscopic coherent matter waves that have revolutionized quantum science and atomic physics. They are essential to quantum simulation and sensing, for example underlying atom interferometers in space and ambitious tests of Einsteins equivalence principle. The key to dramatically increasing the bandwidth and precision of such matter-wave sensors lies in sustaining a coherent matter wave indefinitely. Here we demonstrate continuous Bose-Einstein condensation by creating a continuous-wave (CW) condensate of strontium atoms that lasts indefinitely. The coherent matter wave is sustained by amplification through Bose-stimulated gain of atoms from a thermal bath. By steadily replenishing this bath while achieving 1000x higher phase-space densities than previous works, we maintain the conditions for condensation. This advance overcomes a fundamental limitation of all atomic quantum gas experiments to date: the need to execute several cooling stages time-sequentially. Continuous matter-wave amplification will make possible CW atom lasers, atomic counterparts of CW optical lasers that have become ubiquitous in technology and society. The coherence of such atom lasers will no longer be fundamentally limited by the atom number in a BEC and can ultimately reach the standard quantum limit. Our development provides a new, hitherto missing piece of atom optics, enabling the construction of continuous coherent matter-wave devices. From infrasound gravitational wave detectors to optical clocks, the dramatic improvement in coherence, bandwidth and precision now within reach will be decisive in the creation of a new class of quantum sensors.
We report on the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation of erbium atoms and on the observation of magnetic Feshbach resonances at low magnetic field. By means of evaporative cooling in an optical dipole trap, we produce pure condensates of $^{168}$Er, containing up to $7 times 10^{4}$ atoms. Feshbach spectroscopy reveals an extraordinary rich loss spectrum with six loss resonances already in a narrow magnetic-field range up to 3 G. Finally, we demonstrate the application of a low-field Feshbach resonance to produce a tunable dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate and we observe its characteristic d-wave collapse.
We study the periodic potential of one-dimensional optical lattice originated from scalar shift and vector shift by manipulating the lattice polarizations. The ac Stark shift of optical lattice is measured by Kapitza-Dirac scattering of $^{87}$Rb Bose-Einstein condensate and the characteristics of spin-dependent optical lattice are presented by scanning the lattice wavelength between the D1 and D2 lines. At the same time, tune-out wavelengths that ac Stark shift cancels can be probed by optical lattice. We give the tune-out wavelengths in more general cases of balancing the contributions of both the scalar and vector shift. Our results provide a clear interpretation for spin-dependent optical lattice and tune-out wavelengths, and help to design it by choosing the appropriate lattice wavelength.
We present a novel cavity QED system in which a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) is trapped within a high-finesse optical cavity whose length may be adjusted to access both single-mode and multimode configurations. We demonstrate the coupling of an atomic ensemble to the cavity in both configurations. The atoms are confined either within an intracavity far-off-resonance optical dipole trap (FORT) or a crossed optical dipole trap via transversely oriented lasers. Multimode cavity QED provides fully emergent and dynamical optical lattices for intracavity BECs. Such systems will enable explorations of quantum soft matter, including superfluid smectics, superfluid glasses, and spin glasses as well as neuromorphic associative memory.