No Arabic abstract
A technique is proposed to cool Fermi gases to the regime of quantum degeneracy based on the expected inhibition of spontaneous emission due to the Pauli principle. The reduction of the linewidth for spontaneous emission originates a corresponding reduction of the Doppler temperature, which under specific conditions may give rise to a runaway process through which fermions are progressively cooled. The approach requires a combination of a magneto-optical trap as a cooling system and an optical dipole trap to enhance quantum degeneracy. This results in expected Fermi degeneracy factors $T/T_F$ comparable to the lowest values recently achieved, with potential for a direct implementation in optical lattices. The experimental demonstration of this technique should also indirectly provide a macroscopic manifestation of the Pauli exclusion principle at the atomic physics level.
We investigate a species selective cooling process of a trapped $mathrm{SU}(N)$ Fermi gas using entropy redistribution during adiabatic loading of an optical lattice. Using high-temperature expansion of the Hubbard model, we show that when a subset $N_A < N$ of the single-atom levels experiences a stronger trapping potential in a certain region of space, the dimple, it leads to improvement in cooling as compared to a $mathrm{SU}(N_A)$ Fermi gas only. We show that optimal performance is achieved when all atomic levels experience the same potential outside the dimple and we quantify the cooling for various $N_A$ by evaluating the dependence of the final entropy densities and temperatures as functions of the initial entropy. Furthermore, considering ${}^{87}{rm Sr}$ and ${}^{173}{rm Yb}$ for specificity, we provide a quantitative discussion of how the state selective trapping can be achieved with readily available experimental techniques.
From the study of long-range-interacting systems to the simulation of gauge fields, open-shell Lanthanide atoms with their large magnetic moment and narrow optical transitions open novel directions in the field of ultracold quantum gases. As for other atomic species, the magneto-optical trap (MOT) is the working horse of experiments but its operation is challenging, due to the large electronic spin of the atoms. Here we present an experimental study of narrow-line Dysprosium MOTs. We show that the combination of radiation pressure and gravitational forces leads to a spontaneous polarization of the electronic spin. The spin composition is measured using a Stern-Gerlach separation of spin levels, revealing that the gas becomes almost fully spin-polarized for large laser frequency detunings. In this regime, we reach the optimal operation of the MOT, with samples of typically $3times 10^8$ atoms at a temperature of 15,$mu$K. The spin polarization reduces the complexity of the radiative cooling description, which allows for a simple model accounting for our measurements. We also measure the rate of density-dependent atom losses, finding good agreement with a model based on light-induced Van der Waals forces. A minimal two-body loss rate $betasim 2times10^{-11},$cm$^{3}$/s is reached in the spin-polarized regime. Our results constitute a benchmark for the experimental study of ultracold gases of magnetic Lanthanide atoms.
We review the status of cooling techniques aimed at achieving the deepest quantum degeneracy for atomic Fermi gases. We first discuss some physical motivations, providing a quantitative assessment of the need for deep quantum degeneracy in relevant physics cases, such as the search for unconventional superfluid states. Attention is then focused on the most widespread technique to reach deep quantum degeneracy for Fermi systems, sympathetic cooling of Bose-Fermi mixtures, organizing the discussion according to the specific species involved. Various proposals to circumvent some of the limitations on achieving the deepest Fermi degeneracy, and their experimental realizations, are then reviewed. Finally, we discuss the extension of these techniques to optical lattices and the implementation of precision thermometry crucial to the understanding of the phase diagram of classical and quantum phase transitions in Fermi gases.
Scale invariance emerges and plays an important role in strongly correlated many-body systems such as critical regimes nearby phase transitions and the unitary Fermi gases. Discrete scaling symmetry also manifests itself in quantum few-body systems such as the Efimov effect. Here we report both theoretical predication and experimental observation of a novel type expansion dynamics for scale invariant quantum gases. When the frequency of the harmonic trap holding the gas decreases continuously as the inverse of time $t$, surprisingly, the expansion of cloud size exhibits a sequence of plateaus. Remarkably, the locations of these plateaus obey a discrete geometric scaling law with a controllable scale factor and the entire expansion dynamics is governed by a log-periodic function. This striking expansion of quantum Fermi gases shares similar scaling laws and same mathematical description as the Efimov effect. Our work demonstrates the first expansion dynamics of a quantum many-body system with the temporal discrete scaling symmetry, which reveals the underlying spatial continuous scaling symmetry of the many-body system.
Understanding strongly correlated phases of matter, from the quark-gluon plasma to neutron stars, and in particular the dynamics of such systems, $e.g.$ following a Hamiltonian quench, poses a fundamental challenge in modern physics. Ultracold atomic gases are excellent quantum simulators for these problems, thanks to tuneable interparticle interactions and experimentally resolvable intrinsic timescales. In particular, they give access to the unitary regime where the interactions are as strong as allowed by quantum mechanics. Following years of experiments on unitary Fermi gases, unitary Bose gases have recently emerged as a new experimental frontier. They promise exciting new possibilities, including universal physics solely controlled by the gas density and novel forms of superfluidity. Here, through momentum- and time-resolved studies, we explore both degenerate and thermal homogeneous Bose gases quenched to unitarity. In degenerate samples we observe universal post-quench dynamics in agreement with the emergence of a prethermal state with a universal nonzero condensed fraction. In thermal gases, dynamic and thermodynamic properties generically depend on both the gas density $n$ and temperature $T$, but we find that they can still be expressed in terms of universal dimensionless functions. Surprisingly, the total quench-induced correlation energy is independent of the gas temperature. Our measurements provide quantitative benchmarks and new challenges for theoretical understanding.