Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) has been observed in a dilute gas of sodium atoms. A Bose-Einstein condensate consists of a macroscopic population of the ground state of the system, and is a coherent state of matter. In an ideal gas, this phase transition is purely quantum-statistical. The study of BEC in weakly interacting systems which can be controlled and observed with precision holds the promise of revealing new macroscopic quantum phenomena that can be understood from first principles.

Bose-Einstein condensation in a gas of sodium atoms

We have observed Bose-Einstein condensation of pairs of fermionic atoms in an ultracold 6Li gas at magnetic fields above a Feshbach resonance, where no stable 6Li2 molecules would exist in vacuum. We accurately determined the position of the resonance to be 822+/-3 G. Molecular Bose-Einstein condensates were detected after a fast magnetic field ramp, which transferred pairs of atoms at close distances into bound molecules. Condensate fractions as high as 80% were obtained. The large condensate fractions are interpreted in terms of preexisting molecules which are quasistable even above the two-body Feshbach resonance due to the presence of the degenerate Fermi gas.

Condensation of Pairs of Fermionic Atoms Near a Feshbach Resonance

State-selected rubidium-87 molecules were created at rest in a dilute Bose-Einstein condensate of rubidium-87 atoms with coherent free-bound stimulated Raman transitions. The transition rate exhibited a resonance line shape with an extremely narrow width as small as 1.5 kilohertz. The precise shape and position of the resonance are sensitive to the mean-field interactions between the molecules and the atomic condensate. As a result, we were able to measure the molecule-condensate interactions. This method allows molecular binding energies to be determined with unprecedented accuracy and is of interest as a mechanism for the generation of a molecular Bose-Einstein condensate.

Molecules in a Bose-Einstein condensate

Due to atomic interactions, a dilute gas Bose-Einstein condensate acquires a self- energy proportional to the two-body scattering length a. This self-energy strongly influences the stability, formation rate, size and shape, collective excitations, and other properties of a condensate. For a given atomic species at zero magnetic field, the scattering length is fixed, and this had led to a rather limited range of interaction strengths in experiments. However, it has been predicted that a magnetically tunable Feshbach resonance could be used to strongly modify scattering lengths [1]. We have observed such a Feshbach resonance in collisions of ultracold 85Rb(f =2, mf=−2) atoms in a magnetic field B. From our measured resonance position and width, we infer that the scattering length a2,−2 for collisions of these atoms has the dispersive resonance form.

Observation of a Feshbach Resonance in Cold Atom Scattering

Taking a coherent state representation, we derive the nonlinear Schrodinger-type differential-difference equations from the quantized model of an array of traps containing Bose–Einstein condensates and linked by the tunnelling process among the adjacent traps. It is shown that no matter whether two-body interactions among atoms are repulsive or attractive, a nearly uniform atom distribution can evolve into a bright soliton-type localized ensemble of atoms and a lump of atom distribution can also be smeared out by redistributing atoms among traps under appropriate initial phase differences of atoms in adjacent traps. These two important features originate from the tailoring effect of the initial phase conditions in coherent tunnelling processes, which differs crucially from the previous tailoring effect coming mainly from the periodicity of optical lattices.

Bright Solitons in an Atomic Tunnel Array with Either Attractive or Repulsive Atom–Atom Interactions

We propose an exactly solvable method to study the coherent two-colour photoassociation of an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate, by linearizing the bilinear atom-molecule coupling, which allows us to conveniently probe the quantum dynamics and statistics of the system. By preparing different initial states of the atomic condensate, we can observe very different quantum statistical properties of the system by exactly calculating the quadrature-squeezed and mode-correlated functions.

Photoassociation of atomic BEC within mean-field approximation: Exact solutions

We study the nonlinear effects in the quantum states transfer technique from photons to matter waves in the three-level case, which may provide the formation of a soliton atom laser with nonclassical atoms. The validity of quantum transfer mechanism is confirmed in the presence of the intrinsic nonlinear atomic interactions. The accompanied frequency chirp effect is shown to have no influence on the grey solitons formed by the output atom laser and the possible quantum depletion effect is also briefly discussed.

Soliton Atom Laser with Quantum State Transfer Property

With the method of Green's function, we investigate the energy spectra of two-component ultracold bosonic atoms in optical lattices. We find that there are two energy bands for each component. The critical condition of the superfluid-Mott insulator phase transition is determined by the energy band structure. We also find that the nearest neighboring and on-site interactions fail to change the structure of energy bands, but shift the energy bands only. According to the conditions of the phase transitions, three stable superfluid and Mott insulating phases can be found by adjusting the experiment parameters. We also discuss the possibility of observing these new phases and their transitions in further experiments.

Energy Spectrum of Two-Component Bose–Einstein Condensates in Optical Lattices

We investigate the quantum dynamics and statistics of an interesting system of the double-well Bose–Einstein condensates in the presence of a coherent photo-association process occurring in one of the two wells. Through the analytical solutions of a simplified model of the atom–molecule condensate, our results show the important impact of initial state preparations on the atomic coherence, especially the different squeezing behaviour for the case of photo-association via left-well atoms tunnelling from initial right-well atomic condensate, which holds the promise to be observed in the present laboratory.

Coherent Photo-Association in Double-Well Bose Einstein Condensates

Based on a new type of two-level-system reservoir, we investigate the impact of dissipation on Berry's phase of a spin trapped in a periodical external field. It is found that the existence of environmental noise could lead to a decaying term in the matrix of Berry's phase as the sign of a decoherence process, which is in agreement with the result of Nazir et al. (Phys. Rev. A 65 (2002) 042303). Particularly, in comparison with a specialized case of the traditional Leggett dissipation model, we only shows the dependence of time but not temperature in decaying term. A concrete case is exhibited by using the one-dimensional Ohmic function.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0256-307X/20/6/302/pdf

Jing Hui

Papers

Photoassociation of atomic BEC within mean-field approximation: Exact solutions

Soliton Atom Laser with Quantum State Transfer Property

Energy Spectrum of Two-Component Bose–Einstein Condensates in Optical Lattices

Coherent Photo-Association in Double-Well Bose Einstein Condensates

Effect of noise on Berry's phase for quantum computing