We propose a scheme to probe quantum coherence in the state of a nano-cantilever based on its magnetic coupling (mediated by a magnetic tip) with a spinor Bose Einstein condensate (BEC). By mapping the BEC into a rotor, its coupling with the cantilever results in a gyroscopic motion whose properties depend on the state of the cantilever: the dynamics of one of the components of the rotor angular momentum turns out to be strictly related to the presence of quantum coherence in the state of the cantilever. We also suggest a detection scheme relying on Faraday rotation, which produces only a very small back-action on the BEC and it is thus suitable for a continuous detection of the cantilevers dynamics.
Atomic quantum gases in optical lattices serve as a versatile testbed for important concepts of modern condensed-matter physics. The availability of methods to characterize strongly correlated phases is crucial for the study of these systems. Diffraction techniques to reveal long-range spatial structure, which may complement emph{in situ} detection methods, have been largely unexplored. Here we experimentally demonstrate that Bragg diffraction of neutral atoms can be used for this purpose. Using a one-dimensional Bose gas as a source of matter waves, we are able to infer the spatial ordering and on-site localization of atoms confined to an optical lattice. We also study the suppression of inelastic scattering between incident matter waves and the lattice-trapped atoms, occurring for increased lattice depth. Furthermore, we use atomic de Broglie waves to detect forced antiferromagnetic ordering in an atomic spin mixture, demonstrating the suitability of our method for the non-destructive detection of spin-ordered phases in strongly correlated atomic gases.
We dress atoms with multiple-radiofrequency fields and investigate the spectrum of transitions driven by an additional probe field. A complete theoretical description of this rich spectrum is presented, in which we find allowed transitions and determine their amplitudes using the resolvent formalism. Experimentally, we observe transitions up to sixth order in the probe field using radiofrequency spectroscopy of Bose-Einstein condensates trapped in single- and multiple-radiofrequency-dressed potentials. We find excellent agreement between theory and experiment, including the prediction and verification of previously unobserved transitions, even in the single-radiofrequency case.
We propose a scheme to control quantum coherence of a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) by a single impurity atom immersed in the BEC. We show that the single impurity atom can act as a single atom valve (SAV) to control quantum coherence of the two-component BEC. It is demonstrated that the SAV can realize the on-demand control over quantum coherence at an arbitrary time. Specially, it is found that the SAV can also control higher-order quantum coherence of two-component BEC. We investigate the long-time evolution of quantum coherence of the two-component BEC. It is indicated that the single impurity atom can induce collapse and revival phenomenon of quantum coherence of the two-component BEC. Collapse-revival configurations of quantum coherence can be manipulated by the initial-state parameters of the impurity atom and the impurity-BEC interaction strengths.
More than 30 years ago, Thouless introduced the concept of a topological charge pump that would enable the robust transport of charge through an adiabatic cyclic evolution of the underlying Hamiltonian. In contrast to classical transport, the transported charge was shown to be quantized and purely determined by the topology of the pump cycle, making it robust to perturbations. On a fundamental level, the quantized charge transport can be connected to a topological invariant, the Chern number, first introduced in the context of the integer quantum Hall effect. A Thouless quantum pump may therefore be regarded as a dynamical version of the integer quantum Hall effect. Here, we report on the realization of such a topological charge pump using ultracold bosonic atoms that form a Mott insulator in a dynamically controlled optical superlattice potential. By taking in-situ images of the atom cloud, we observe a quantized deflection per pump cycle. We reveal the genuine quantum nature of the pump by showing that, in contrast to ground state particles, a counterintuitive reversed deflection occurs when particles are prepared in the first excited band. Furthermore, we were able to directly demonstrate that the system undergoes a controlled topological phase transition in higher bands when tuning the superlattice parameters.
Quantum information platforms made great progress in the control of many-body entanglement and the implementation of quantum error correction, but it remains a challenge to realize both in the same setup. Here, we propose a mixture of two ultracold atomic species as a platform for universal quantum computation with long-range entangling gates, while providing a natural candidate for quantum error-correction. In this proposed setup, one atomic species realizes localized collective spins of tunable length, which form the fundamental unit of information. The second atomic species yields phononic excitations, which are used to entangle collective spins. Finally, we discuss a finite-dimensional version of the Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill code to protect quantum information encoded in the collective spins, opening up the possibility to universal fault-tolerant quantum computation in ultracold atom systems.