We study the influence of two resonant laser beams (to be referred to as the control and probe beams) on the centre of mass motion of ultra-cold atoms characterised by three energy levels of the Lambda-type. The laser beams being in the Electromagnetically Induced Transparency (EIT) configuration drive the atoms to their dark states. We impose the adiabatic approximation and obtain an effective equation of motion for the dark state atoms. The equation contains a vector potential type interaction as well as an effective trapping potential. We concentrate on the situation where the control and probe beams are co-propagating and have Orbital Angular Momenta (OAM). The effective magnetic field is then oriented along the propagation direction of the control and probe beams. Its spatial profile can be shaped by choosing proper laser beams. We analyse several situations where the effective magnetic field exhibits a radial dependence. In particular we study effective magnetic fields induced by Bessel beams, and demonstrate how to generate a constant effective magnetic field for a ring geometry of the atomic trap. We also discuss a possibility to create an effective field of a magnetic monopole.
Ultra-cold atomic systems provide a new setting where to investigate the role of long-range interactions. In this paper we will review the basics features of those physical systems, in particular focusing on the case of Chromium atoms. On the experimental side, we report on the observation of dipolar effects in the expansion dynamics of a Chromium Bose-Einstein condensate. By using a Feshbach resonance, the scattering length characterising the contact interaction can be strongly reduced, thus increasing the relative effect of the dipole-dipole interaction. Such experiments make Chromium atoms the strongest candidates at present for the achievement of the strong dipolar regime. On the theoretical side, we investigate the behaviour of ultra-cold dipolar systems in the presence of a periodic potential. We discuss how to realise this situation experimentally and we characterise the system in terms of its quantum phases and metastable states, discussing in detail the differences with respect to the case of zero-range interactions.
We investigate the sympathetic relaxation of a free-standing, vibrating carbon nano-tube that is mounted on an atom chip and is immersed in a cloud of ultra-cold atoms. Gas atoms colliding with the nano-tube excite phonons via a Casimir-Polder potential. We use Fermis Golden Rule to estimate the relaxation rates for relevant experimental parameters and develop a fully dynamic theory of relaxation for the multi-mode phononic field embedded in a thermal atomic reservoir. Based on currently available experimental data, we identify the relaxation rates as a function of atom density and temperature that are required for sympathetic ground state cooling of carbon nano-tubes.
We study systems of fully polarized ultracold atomic gases obeying Fermi statistics. The atomic transition interacts dispersively with a mode of a standing-wave cavity, which is coherently pumped by a laser. In this setup, the intensity of the intracavity field is determined by the refractive index of the atomic medium, and thus by the atomic density distribution. Vice versa, the density distribution of the atom is determined by the cavity field potential, whose depth is proportional to the intracavity field amplitude. In this work we show that this nonlinearity leads to an instability in the intracavity intensity that differs substantially from dispersive optical bistability, as this effect is already present in the regime, where the atomic dipole is proportional to the cavity field. Such instability is driven by the matter waves fluctuations and exhibits a peculiar dependence on the fluctuations in the atomic density distribution.
The rapidly developing field of optomechanics aims at the combined control of optical and mechanical (solid-state or atomic) modes. In particular, laser cooled atoms have been used to exploit optomechanical coupling for self-organization in a variety of schemes where the accessible length scales are constrained by a combination of pump modes and those associated to a second imposed axis, typically a cavity axis. Here, we consider a system with many spatial degrees of freedom around a single distinguished axis, in which two symmetries - rotations and translations in the plane orthogonal to the pump axis - are spontaneously broken. We observe the simultaneous spatial structuring of the density of a cold atomic cloud and an optical pump beam. The resulting patterns have hexagonal symmetry. The experiment demonstrates the manipulation of matter by opto-mechanical self-assembly with adjustable length scales and can be potentially extended to quantum degenerate gases.
We present a concise review of the physics of ultra-cold dipolar gases, based mainly on the theoretical developments in our own group. First, we discuss shortly weakly interacting ultra-cold trapped dipolar gases. Dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates exhibit non-standard instabilities and the physics of both Bose and Fermi dipolar gases depends on the trap geometry. We focus then the second part of the paper on strongly correlated dipolar gases and discuss ultra-cold dipolar gases in optical lattices. Such gases exhibit a spectacular richness of quantum phases and metastable states, which may perhaps be used as quantum memories. We comment shortly on the possibility of superchemistry aiming at the creation of dipolar heteronuclear molecules in lattices. Finally, we turn to ultra-cold dipolar gases in artificial magnetic fields, and consider rotating dipolar gases, that provide in our opinion the best option towards the realization of the fractional quantum Hall effect and quantum Wigner crystals.