Low-Entropy States of Neutral Atoms in Polarization-Synthesized Optical Lattices.

Carsten Robens,Wolfgang Alt,Jonathan Zopes,Dieter Meschede,Andrea Alberti,Stefan Brakhane

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.118.065302

Abstract

We create low-entropy states of neutral atoms by utilizing a conceptually new optical-lattice technique that relies on a high-precision, high-bandwidth synthesis of light polarization. Polarization-synthesized optical lattices provide two fully controllable optical lattice potentials, each of them confining only atoms in either one of the two long-lived hyperfine states. By employing one lattice as the storage register and the other one as the shift register, we provide a proof of concept using four atoms that selected regions of the periodic potential can be filled with one particle per site. We expect that our results can be scaled up to thousands of atoms by employing an atom-sorting algorithm with logarithmic complexity, which is enabled by polarization-synthesized optical lattices. Vibrational entropy is subsequently removed by sideband cooling methods. Our results pave the way for a bottom-up approach to creating ultralow-entropy states of a many-body system.

Highlights

We create low-entropy states of neutral atoms by utilizing a conceptually new optical-lattice technique that relies on a high-precision, high-bandwidth synthesis of light polarization
The idea of employing the myriad of sites available as a well-controlled Hilbert space has influenced modern research frontiers ranging from quantum metrology [2], quantum information processing [3,4,5,6,7,8], discrete-time quantum walks [9], up to quantum simulations of strongly correlated condensed-matter systems [10,11,12] with single lattice-site resolution [13,14]
Low-entropy states play an essential role in a host of quantum applications including the creation of highly entangled cluster states for quantum information processing [15], investigation of Hong-OuMandel-like quantum correlations in many-body systems [16,17], and the quantum simulation of quantum spin liquids in frustrated systems [18,19]

Summary

Introduction

We create low-entropy states of neutral atoms by utilizing a conceptually new optical-lattice technique that relies on a high-precision, high-bandwidth synthesis of light polarization. In this Letter, we demonstrate a bottom-up approach to generate arbitrary atom patterns, including unity filling of lattice sites, in a one-dimensional (1D) optical lattice.

Results

Conclusion