No Arabic abstract
This review discusses progress in the new field of coherent matter waves, in particular with respect to Bose-Einstein condensates. We give a short introduction to Bose-Einstein condensation and the theoretical description of the condensate wavefunction. We concentrate on the coherence properties of this new type of matter wave as a basis for fundamental physics and applications. The main part of this review treats various measurements and concepts in the physics with coherent matter waves. In particular we present phase manipulation methods, atom lasers, nonlinear atom optics, optical elements, interferometry and physics in optical lattices. We give an overview of the state of the art in the respective fields and discuss achievements and challenges for the future.
By moving the pivot of a pendulum rapidly up and down one can create a stable position with the pendulums bob above the pivot rather than below it. This surprising and counterintuitive phenomenon is a widespread feature of driven systems and carries over into the quantum world. Even when the static properties of a quantum system are known, its response to an explicitly time-dependent variation of its parameters may be highly nontrivial, and qualitatively new states can appear that were absent in the original system. In quantum mechanics the archetype for this kind of behaviour is an atom in a radiation field, which exhibits a number of fundamental phenomena such as the modification of its g-factor in a radio-frequency field and the dipole force acting on an atom moving in a spatially varying light field. These effects can be successfully described in the so-called dressed atom picture. Here we show that the concept of dressing can also be applied to macroscopic matter waves, and that the quantum states of dressed matter waves can be coherently controlled. In our experiments we use Bose-Einstein condensates in driven optical lattices and demonstrate that the many-body state of this system can be adiabatically and reversibly changed between a superfluid and a Mott insulating state by varying the amplitude of the driving. Our setup represents a versatile testing ground for driven quantum systems, and our results indicate the direction towards new quantum control schemes for matter waves.
We calculate the dynamical fluctuation spectrum of electronic spins in a semiconductor under a steady-state illumination by light containing polarization squeezing correlations. Taking into account quasi-particle lifetime and spin relaxation for this non-equilibrium situation we consider up to fourth order optical effects which are sensitive to the squeezing phases. We demonstrate the possibility to control the spin fluctuations by optically modulating these phases as a function of frequency, leading to a non-Lorentzian spectrum which is very different from the thermal equilibrium fluctuations in n-doped semiconductors. Specifically, in the time-domain spin-spin correlation can exhibit time delays and sign flips originating from the phase modulations and correlations of polarizations, respectively. For higher light intensity we expect a regime where the squeezing correlations will dominate the spectrum.
We investigate bright and dark solitons with anomalous or normal dispersion and under transverse harmonic confinement. In matter waves, positive atomic mass implies anomalous dispersion (kinetic spreading) while negative mass gives normal dispersion (kinetic shrinking). We find that, contrary to the strictly one-dimensional case, the axial and transverse profiles of these solitons crucially depend on the strength of the nonlinearity and on their dispersive properties. In particular, we show that, like bright solitons with anomalous dispersion, also dark solitons with normal dispersion disappear at a critical axial density. Our predictions are useful for the study of atomic matter waves in Bose-Einstein condensates and also for optical bullets in inhomogeneous Kerr media.
We investigate the thermodynamic properties of a Bose-Einstein condensate with negative scattering length confined in a toroidal trapping potential. By numerically solving the coupled Gross-Pitaevskii and Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations, we study the phase transition from the uniform state to the symmetry-breaking state characterized by a bright-soliton condensate and a localized thermal cloud. In the localized regime three states with a finite condensate fraction are present: the thermodynamically stable localized state, a metastable localized state and also a metastable uniform state. Remarkably, the presence of the stable localized state strongly increases the critical temperature of Bose-Einstein condensation.
We show that the resonant coupling of phonons and magnons can be exploited to generate spin currents at room temperature. Surface acoustic wave (SAW) pulses with a frequency of 1.55 GHz and duration of 300 ns provide coherent elastic waves in a ferromagnetic thin film/normal metal (Co/Pt) bilayer. We use the inverse spin Hall voltage in the Pt as a measure for the spin current and record its evolution as a function of time and external magnetic field magnitude and orientation. Our experiments show that a spin current is generated in the exclusive presence of a resonant elastic excitation. This establishes acoustic spin pumping as a resonant analogue to the spin Seebeck effect.