Abstract
There is a pressing need for robust and straightforward methods to create potentials for trapping Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) that are simultaneously dynamic, fully arbitrary and sufficiently stable to not heat the ultracold gas. We show here how to accomplish these goals, using a rapidly moving laser beam that ‘paints’ a time-averaged optical dipole potential in which we create BECs in a variety of geometries, including toroids, ring lattices and square lattices. Matter wave interference patterns confirm that the trapped gas is a condensate. As a simple illustration of dynamics, we show that the technique can transform a toroidal condensate into a ring lattice and back into a toroid. The technique is general and should work with any sufficiently polarizable low-energy particles.
Highlights
An atomic Bose Einstein condensate (BEC), which can be thought of as a large number of atoms mostly occupying the same single particle state, is one of the most fundamental quantum many-body systems
Much effort has naturally gone into attempts to develop potentials which are simultaneously dynamic, fully arbitrary, and sufficiently smooth and stable to not heat the ultracold BEC
One example is the theoretical attention currently being directed at quantum gases in multiply-connected geometries such as toroids and ring lattices
Summary
An atomic Bose Einstein condensate (BEC), which can be thought of as a large number of atoms mostly occupying the same single particle state, is one of the most fundamental quantum many-body systems This essential simplicity is responsible for a huge body of research on atomic BEC, including topics such as matter-wave interferometry, quantum information processing, superfluidity, many-body physics, and quantum phase transitions. One example is the theoretical attention currently being directed at quantum gases in multiply-connected geometries such as toroids and ring lattices. These geometries deliver freedom from end effects, they realize periodic boundary conditions, and they can stabilize topological defects such as vortices. A method to create arbitrary potential lattices is necessary for quantum simulation and studies of so-called tailored matter [9] and it is desirable for quantum information processing [10]
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