The possibility to coherently control a quantum rotor is investigated theoretically. The rotor is realized by an antiferromagnetic spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate, trapped in the optical field of a Fabry-Perot resonator. By tuning the pumping field of the resonator, coherent control over the rotor is achieved. The technique is illustrated by the numerical simulation of a protocol that transforms the rotors ground state into a squeezed state. The detection of the squeezed state via measurement of intensity-correlations of the cavity field is proposed.
We study the mechanical performance of quantum rotor heat engines in terms of common notions of work using two prototypical models: a mill driven by the heat flow from a hot to a cold mode, and a piston driven by the alternate heating and cooling of a single working mode. We evaluate the extractable work in terms of ergotropy, the kinetic energy associated to net directed rotation, as well as the intrinsic work based on the exerted torque under autonomous operation, and we compare them to the energy output for the case of an external dissipative load and for externally driven engine cycles. Our results connect work definitions from both physical and information-theoretical perspectives. In particular, we find that apart from signatures of angular momentum quantization, the ergotropy is consistent with the intuitive notion of work in the form of net directed motion. It also agrees with the energy output to an external load or agent under optimal conditions. This sets forth a consistent thermodynamical description of rotating quantum motors, flywheels, and clocks.
We study the means to prepare and coherently manipulate atomic wave packets in optical lattices, with particular emphasis on alkali atoms in the far-detuned limit. We derive a general, basis independent expression for the lattice operator, and show that its off-diagonal elements can be tailored to couple the vibrational manifolds of separate magnetic sublevels. Using these couplings one can evolve the state of a trapped atom in a quantum coherent fashion, and prepare pure quantum states by resolved-sideband Raman cooling. We explore the use of atoms bound in optical lattices to study quantum tunneling and the generation of macroscopic superposition states in a double-well potential. Far-off-resonance optical potentials lend themselves particularly well to reservoir engineering via well controlled fluctuations in the potential, making the atom/lattice system attractive for the study of decoherence and the connection between classical and quantum physics.
We suggest a new method for quantum optical control with nanoscale resolution. Our method allows for coherent far-field manipulation of individual quantum systems with spatial selectivity that is not limited by the wavelength of radiation and can, in principle, approach a few nanometers. The selectivity is enabled by the nonlinear atomic response, under the conditions of Electromagnetically Induced Transparency, to a control beam with intensity vanishing at a certain location. Practical performance of this technique and its potential applications to quantum information science with cold atoms, ions, and solid-state qubits are discussed.
The study of quantum resonances in the chaotic atom-optics kicked rotor system is of interest from two different perspectives. In quantum chaos, it marks out the regime of resonant quantum dynamics in which the atomic cloud displays ballistic mean energy growth due to coherent momentum transfer. Secondly, the sharp quantum resonance peaks are useful in the context of measurement of Talbot time, one of the parameter that helps in precise measurement of fine structure constant. Most of the earlier works rely on fidelity based approach and have proposed Talbot time measurement through experimental determination of the momentum space probability density of the periodically kicked atomic cloud. Fidelity approach has the disadvantage that phase reversed kicks need to be imparted as well which potentially leads to dephasing. In contrast to this, in this work, it is theoretically shown that, without manipulating the kick sequences, the quantum resonances through position space density can be measured more accurately and is experimentally feasible as well.
We study the dynamics of the many-body atomic kicked rotor with interactions at the mean-field level, governed by the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. We show that dynamical localization is destroyed by the interaction, and replaced by a subdiffusive behavior. In contrast to results previously obtained from a simplified version of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation, the subdiffusive exponent does not appear to be universal. By studying the phase of the mean-field wave function, we propose a new approximation that describes correctly the dynamics at experimentally relevant times close to the start of subdiffusion, while preserving the reduced computational cost of the former approximation.