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Register a new userNon-destructive shadowgraph imaging of ultracold atoms
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An imaging system is presented that is capable of far-detuned non-destructive imaging of a Bose-Einstein condensate with the signal proportional to the second spatial derivative of the density. Whilst demonstrated with application to $^{85}text{Rb}$, the technique generalizes to other atomic species and is shown to be capable of a signal to noise of ${sim}25$ at $1$GHz detuning with $100$ in-trap images showing no observable heating or atom loss. The technique is also applied to the observation of individual trajectories of stochastic dynamics inaccessible to single shot imaging. Coupled with a fast optical phase lock loop, the system is capable of dynamically switching to resonant absorption imaging during the experiment.
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We describe an easily implementable method for non-destructive measurements of ultracold atomic clouds based on dark field imaging of spatially resolved Faraday rotation. The signal-to-noise ratio is analyzed theoretically and, in the absence of experimental imperfections, the sensitivity limit is found to be identical to other conventional dispersive imaging techniques. The dependence on laser detuning, atomic density and temperature is characterized in a detailed comparison with theory. Due to low destructiveness, spatially resolved images of the same cloud can be acquired up to 2000 times. The technique is applied to avoid the effect of shot-to-shot fluctuations in atom number calibration, to demonstrate single-run vector magnetic field imaging and single-run spatial imaging of the systems dynamic behavior. This demonstrates that the method is a useful tool for the characterization of static and dynamically changing properties of ultracold atomic clouds.
Imaging ultracold atomic gases close to surfaces is an important tool for the detailed analysis of experiments carried out using atom chips. We describe the critical factors that need be considered, especially when the imaging beam is purposely reflected from the surface. In particular we present methods to measure the atom-surface distance, which is a prerequisite for magnetic field imaging and studies of atom surface-interactions.
We demonstrate a new method for non-destructive imaging of laser-cooled atoms. This spatial heterodyne technique forms a phase image by interfering a strong carrier laser beam with a weak probe beam that passes through the cold atom cloud. The figure of merit equals or exceeds that of phase-contrast imaging, and the technique can be used over a wider range of spatial scales. We show images of a dark spot MOT taken with imaging fluences as low as 61 pJ/cm^2 at a detuning of 11 linewidths, resulting in 0.0004 photons scattered per atom.
In order to study ultracold charge-transfer processes in hybrid atom-ion traps, we have mapped out the potential energy curves and molecular parameters for several low lying states of the Rb, Yb$^+$ system. We employ both a multi-reference configuration interaction (MRCI) and a full configuration interaction (FCI) approach. Turning points, crossing points, potential minima and spectroscopic molecular constants are obtained for the lowest five molecular states. Long-range parameters, including the dispersion coefficients are estimated from our {it ab initio} data. The separated-atom ionization potentials and atomic polarizability of the ytterbium atom ($alpha_d=128.4$ atomic units) are in good agreement with experiment and previous calculations. We present some dynamical calculations for (adiabatic) scattering lengths for the two lowest (Yb,Rb$^+$) channels that were carried out in our work. However, we find that the pseudo potential approximation is rather limited in validity, and only applies to nK temperatures. The adiabatic scattering lengths for both the triplet and singlet channels indicate that both are large and negative in the FCI approximation.
We demonstrate that a dispersive imaging technique based on the Faraday effect can measure the atom number in a large, ultracold atom cloud with a precision below the atom shot noise level. The minimally destructive character of the technique allows us to take multiple images of the same cloud, which enables sub-atom shot noise measurement precision of the atom number and allows for an in situ determination of the measurement precision. We have developed a noise model that quantitatively describes the noise contributions due to photon shot noise in the detected light and the noise associated with single atom loss. This model contains no free parameters and is calculated through an analysis of the fluctuations in the acquired images. For clouds containing $N sim 5 times 10^6$ atoms, we achieve a precision more than a factor of two below the atom shot noise level.
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