Preparing the spin-singlet state of a spinor gas in an optical cavity

Abstract

We propose a method to prepare the spin singlet in an ensemble of integer-spin atoms confined within a high-finesse optical cavity. Using a cavity-assisted Raman transition to produce an effective Tavis-Cummings model, we show that a high fidelity spin singlet can be produced probabilistically, although with low efficiency, heralded by the \emph{absence} of photons escaping the cavity. In a different limit, a similar configuration of laser and cavity fields can be used to engineer a model that emulates spinor collisional dynamics. Borrowing from techniques used in spinor Bose-Einstein condensates, we show that adiabatic transformation of the system Hamiltonian (via a time-dependent, effective quadratic Zeeman shift) can be used to produce a low fidelity spin singlet. Then, by following this method with the aforementioned heralding technique, we show that it is possible to prepare the singlet state with both high fidelity and good efficiency for a large ensemble.