No Arabic abstract
We investigate three types of amplification processes for light fields coupling to an atom near the end of a one-dimensional semi-infinite waveguide. We consider two setups where a drive creates population inversion in the bare or dressed basis of a three-level atom and one setup where the amplification is due to higher-order processes in a driven two-level atom. In all cases, the end of the waveguide acts as a mirror for the light. We find that this enhances the amplification in two ways compared to the same setups in an open waveguide. Firstly, the mirror forces all output from the atom to travel in one direction instead of being split up into two output channels. Secondly, interference due to the mirror enables tuning of the ratio of relaxation rates for different transitions in the atom to increase population inversion. We quantify the enhancement in amplification due to these factors and show that it can be demonstrated for standard parameters in experiments with superconducting quantum circuits.
Quantum fluctuations of the vacuum are both a surprising and fundamental phenomenon of nature. Understood as virtual photons flitting in and out of existence, they still have a very real impact, emph{e.g.}, in the Casimir effects and the lifetimes of atoms. Engineering vacuum fluctuations is therefore becoming increasingly important to emerging technologies. Here, we shape vacuum fluctuations using a mirror, creating regions in space where they are suppressed. As we then effectively move an artificial atom in and out of these regions, measuring the atomic lifetime tells us the strength of the fluctuations. The weakest fluctuation strength we observe is 0.02 quanta, a factor of 50 below what would be expected without the mirror, demonstrating that we can hide the atom from the vacuum.
In this paper we show that the sensitivity of absorption imaging of ultracold atoms can be significantly improved by imaging in a standing-wave configuration. We present simulations of single-atom absorption imaging both for a travelling-wave and a standing-wave imaging setup, based on a scattering approach to calculate the optical density of a single atom. We find that the optical density of a single atom is determined only by the numerical aperture of the imaging system. We determine optimum imaging parameters, taking all relevant sources of noise into account. For reflective imaging we find an improvement of 1.7 in the maximum signal-to-noise ratio can be achieved. This is particularly useful for imaging in the vicinity of an atom chip, where a reflective surface is naturally present.
Long coherence times and fast gate operations are desirable but often conflicting requirements for physical qubits. This conflict can be resolved by resorting to fast qubits for operations, and by storing their state in a `quantum memory while idle. The $^{31}$P donor in silicon comes naturally equipped with a fast qubit (the electron spin) and a long-lived qubit (the $^{31}$P nuclear spin), coexisting in a bound state at cryogenic temperatures. Here, we demonstrate storage and retrieval of quantum information from a single donor electron spin to its host phosphorus nucleus in isotopically-enriched $^{28}$Si. The fidelity of the memory process is characterised via both state and process tomography. We report an overall process fidelity of $F_p =$81${pm}$7%, a memory fidelity ($F_m$) of over 90%, and memory storage times up to 80 ms. These values are limited by a transient shift of the electron spin resonance frequency following high-power radiofrequency pulses.
The ultimate precision limit in estimating the Larmor frequency of $N$ unentangled rotating spins is well established, and is highly important for magnetometers, gyroscopes and many other sensors. However this limit assumes perfect, single addressing, measurements of the spins. This requirement is not practical in NMR spectroscopy, as well as other physical systems, where a weakly interacting external probe is used as a measurement device. Here we show that in the framework of quantum nano-NMR spectroscopy, in which these limitations are inherent, the ultimate precision limit is still achievable using control and a finely tuned measurement.
We study the decoherence speed limit (DSL) of a single impurity atom immersed in a Bose-Einsteincondensed (BEC) reservoir when the impurity atom is in a double-well potential. We demonstrate how the DSL of the impurity atom can be manipulated by engineering the BEC reservoir and the impurity potential within experimentally realistic limits. We show that the DSL can be controlled by changing key parameters such as the condensate scattering length, the effective dimension of the BEC reservoir, and the spatial configuration of the double-well potential imposed on the impurity. We uncover the physical mechanisms of controlling the DSL at root of the spectral density of the BEC reservoir.