Effective Rabi Frequency Research Articles

Use of the 5P3/2→6P3/2 electric dipole forbidden transition in Rb as a non-perturbing probe of atom dynamics in an operating magneto-optical trap

Abstract Results of spectroscopy experiments using the $5P_{3/2} \to 6P_{3/2}$ electric dipole forbidden transition in cold rubidium atoms are presented. Production of this forbidden transition is detected by observing the emission of the $420 $ nm fluorescence photons that result from the decay of the $6P_{3/2} $ state into the ground state. The experiments are performed under the steady state operation conditions of a magneto-optical trap (MOT), and thus provide non-perturbing information on the atom-light system. The hyperfine structure of the $6P_{3/2}$ level is completely resolved, and the fluorescence peaks show the expected Autler-Townes (AT) splitting of the emission lines. This hyperfine structure is used to calibrate the frequency scale of all spectra recorded. A combination of this absolute frequency scale and an expression for the AT profile allows an absolute determination of the effective Rabi frequency and detuning of the MOT. The behavior of these AT doublets is studied as a function of frequency detuning and also as a function of the trapping light intensity.
The experiments also take full advantage of the strong polarization dependence of the relative intensities of the hyperfine fluorescence components.
This study results in a sensitive probe of the relative populations of the magnetic sublevel projections relative to the trapping magnetic field gradient.
An almost isotropic population distribution was found, but small deviations from isotropy could be determined with this electric dipole forbidden probe.

Robust discriminator of chiral molecules via a topological invariant.

We propose a scheme for chirality discrimination via a topological invariant. The physical model is based on a three-level subspace of a molecule. By modulating the components of the control field with proper frequencies, two different two-level effective Hamiltonians are derived for the left-handed and the right-handed molecules. We parameterize the effective Hamiltonians with two angles and demonstrate that a topological quantum phase transition can be induced by tuning the effective Rabi frequency if the molecule is right-handed. This phenomenon provides a method to discriminate the chirality of the molecule by measuring a topological invariant, i.e., the Chern number, of the parametric manifold. Since the Chern number is robust against perturbations to the system, the scheme is insensitive to the systematic errors of the control fields, the deviations of the modulation frequencies, and decoherence of the molecule. Therefore, the scheme may provide useful perspectives to construct a robust discriminator of chiral molecules.

Pump-Probe Optical Response and Four-Wave Mixing in a Zinc-Phthalocyanine-Metal Nanoparticle Hybrid System.

We investigate theoretically the optical response of a zinc-phthalocyanine molecular quantum system near a gold spherical nanoparticle with a radius of 80 nm. The quantum system is irradiated by a strong pump and a weak probe coherent electromagnetic field. Using the density matrix methodology, we obtain analytical expressions for the absorption, dispersion, and the four-wave-mixing coefficients. The influence of the nanoparticle on the spontaneous decay rate of the quantum system, as well as on the external fields, are obtained by an electromagnetic Green's tensor method. The spectroscopic parameters of the molecule are also obtained by ab initio methods. For the studied optical spectra, we find that, below a critical distance between the molecule and the plasmonic nanoparticle, determined by the minimal value of the effective Rabi frequency, single-peaked spectra are observed. Above this critical distance, the spectra exhibit the characteristic Mollow-shaped profiles. The enhancement of the pump field detuning induces the shift of the sideband resonances away from the origin. Lastly, and most importantly, regardless of the value of the detuning, the optical response of the system is maximized for an intermediate value of the interparticle distance.

Splitting of the Effective Rabi Frequencies for the Coherent Plasmonic Fields in the Semiconductor Quantum Dot–Metal Nanospheres Hybrids

AbstractSplitting of the effective Rabi frequencies for plasmonic fields when the interaction occurs between semiconductor quantum dot and three metallic nanospheres in the presence of three electromagnetic fields is examined. We study theoretically the role of the dipole–dipole interactions in creating many Multipoles. Then, we split the effective Rabi frequencies into three parts according to the quantitative Multipoles of the plasmonic fields. The density matrix equations are derived for the description of the optical properties of the SQD-MNPs nanosystem. We investigate the influence of each part of the effective Rabi frequencies and compare them with each other individually. The three parts of the effective Rabi frequency for the probe field are affected by changing the angles, the strong probe field and other parameters for the hybrid system.

Bespoke pulse design for robust rapid two-qubit gates with trapped ions

Two-qubit gate performance is vital for scaling up ion-trap quantum computing. Optimized quantum control is needed to achieve reductions in gate-time and gate error-rate. We describe two-qubit gates with addressed Raman beams within a linear trapped-ion chain by a quantum master equation (QME). The QME incorporates the single-ion two-photon effective Rabi frequency, Autler-Townes and vibrational Bloch-Siegert energy shifts, off-resonant transitions, Raman and Rayleigh scattering, laser-power fluctuations, motional heating, cross-Kerr phonon coupling, laser spillover, asymmetric addressing beams and an imperfect initial motional ground state, with no fitting parameters. Whereas state-of-the-art methods are oblivious to these effects in the gate design procedure. We employ global optimization to design pulse sequences for achieving a robust rapid two-qubit gate for seven trapped $^{171}$Yb$^{+}$ ions by optimizing over numerically integrated QME solutions. Here, robust means resilient against slow drift of motional frequencies, and rapid means gate execution where the effective Rabi frequency is comparable to the detuning of the laser from the ion's bare electronic transition. Our robust quantum control delivers rapid high-quality two-qubit gates in long ion chains, enabling scalable quantum computing with trapped ions.

Robust segmented entangling gates with pulse gradient and power optimization using a hypersurface-tangent method

To implement a scalable and fault-tolerant programmable quantum computing architecture, the realization of high-fidelity, robust, and efficient quantum entangling gates in a multiqubit system is an essential requirement. In this paper, we consider the optimization of the segmented amplitude-modulated entangling gates realized by applying spin-dependent forces to a chain of ions trapped in a hybrid quadratic and quartic potential. We propose a geometrical hypersurface-tangent method to optimize the laser power and the pulse gradient, carefully considering the experimental feasibility in realizing the effective Rabi frequency and its change between adjacent pulse segments. In addition, our method allows us to optimize the solution for the case of a few segments by constructing an approximated null space through trading a negligible amount of gate fidelity. Finally, we show that the present scheme can provide a unified framework to improve the robustness to an arbitrary order against random static drifts of the motional frequencies, the gate duration errors, the laser detuning drifts, and their simultaneous drifts.

Improving the fringe contrast in an atomic gravimeter by optimizing the Raman laser intensity

As the expansion of the atomic cloud’s diameter relative to the Gaussian Raman beam in an atom interferometer, the interaction between them would be reduced. Such an effect can decrease the effective Rabi frequency and lower the state transfer efficiency of the Raman laser, which finally reduces the fringe contrast and the sensitivity of the atom interferometer. In this work, we demonstrate experimentally that the fringe contrast can be improved by optimizing the laser intensities of three Raman pulses, and find that the criterion for the optimized Raman laser intensities should be the Raman pulse efficiency rather than the Rabi frequency. In the case of an atomic gravimeter, our method obtains an obvious enhancement of the fringe contrast when T > 60 ms and the maximum contrast enhancement is ∼5.1% (from 25.3% to 26.6%) at T = 120 ms. These results could be beneficial for atom-interferometer-based inertial sensors, including but not limited to the atomic gravimeter, gravity gradiometer and gyroscope.

A versatile multi-tone laser system for manipulating atomic qubits based on a fiber Mach-Zehnder modulator and second harmonic generation.

Stimulated Raman transition is a fundamental method to coherently manipulate quantum states in different physical systems. Phase-coherent dichromatic radiation fields matching the energy level splitting are the key to realizing stimulated Raman transition. Here we demonstrate a flexible-tuning, spectrum-clean and fiber-compatible method to generate a highly phase-coherent and high-power multi-tone laser. This method features the utilization of a broadband fiber Mach-Zehnder modulator working at carrier suppression condition and second harmonic generation. We generate a multi-tone continuous-wave 532 nm laser with a power of 1.5 Watts and utilize it to manipulate the spin and motional states of a trapped 171Yb+ ion via stimulated Raman transition. For spin state manipulation, we acquire an effective Rabi frequency of 2π × 662.3 kHz. Due to the broad bandwidth of the fiber modulator and nonlinear crystal, the frequency gap between tones can be flexibly tuned. Benefiting from the features above, this method can manipulate 171Yb+ and 137Ba+ simultaneously in the multi-species ion trap and has potential to be widely applied in atomic, molecular and optical physics.

Size-reduction of Rydberg collective excited states in cold atomic system

The collective effect of large amounts of atoms exhibit an enhanced interaction between light and atoms. This holds great interest in quantum optics, and quantum information. When a collective excited state of a group of atoms during Rabi oscillation is varying, the oscillation exhibits rich dynamics. Here, we experimentally observe a size-reduction effect of the Rydberg collective state during Rabi oscillation in cold atomic dilute gases. The Rydberg collective state was first created by the Rydberg quantum memory, and we observed a decreased oscillation frequency effect by measuring the time traces of the retrieved light field amplitude, which exhibited chirped characteristics. This is caused by the simultaneous decay to the overall ground state and the overall loss of atoms. The observed oscillations are dependent on the effective Rabi frequency and detuning of the coupling laser, and the dephasing from inhomogeneous broadening. The reported results show the potential prospects of studying the dynamics of the collective effect of a large amount of atoms and manipulating a single-photon wave-packet based on the interaction between light and Rydberg atoms.

Theoretical study of the control of absorption, transparency, and amplification in a microwave- and RF-driven four-level (Δ + ∇)-type closed-contour interaction system

This paper describes a theoretical study of the optical responses of an atomic medium to the probe field in a four-level (Δ + ∇)-type closed-contour interaction system driven by two pump laser fields (P1, P2), one probe laser field (Pr) and two microwave or radio frequency (RF) coupling fields (L, U). Here, L and U are considered to connect the forbidden electric dipole transitions, i.e. two hyperfine ground states of the Δ subsystem and two hyperfine excited states of the ∇ subsystem, respectively. Since each subsystem is a closed-loop system, relative phases are thought to be present between the optical fields (pump and probe fields), and the microwave or RF fields. The manipulation of the quantum coherence of the system by the strengths of coupling fields along with the relative phases is demonstrated in terms of the changes occurring in the absorption of the probe field by the medium. The probe absorption and dispersion profiles are extracted by numerically solving the optical Bloch equations for the system under steady-state conditions. In this study, we start by illuminating the system with the probe only, and then, by applying the pump fields and the coupling fields one by one, the changes in the absorptive and dispersive probe line profiles are investigated for two distinct cases that depend on the relative strengths of the pump fields, e.g. when P2 is stronger than P1 and vice versa. Furthermore, the individual effects of the strengths and phases of the coupling fields on the probe absorption, transparency and amplification are also explored for both cases. All the changes that appear in the probe signal as a result of the application of different fields are explained by the modified interaction fields or the corresponding effective Rabi frequencies obtained from the partial dressed-state analysis.

Sub-wavelength spin excitations in ultracold gases created by stimulated Raman transitions

Raman transitions are used in quantum simulations with ultracold atoms for cooling, spectroscopy and creation of artificial gauge fields. Spatial shaping of the Raman fields allows local control of the effective Rabi frequency, which can be mapped to the atomic spin. Evanescent Raman fields are of special interest as they can provide a new degree of control emanating from their rapidly decaying profile and for their ability to generate features below the diffraction limit. This opens the door to the formation of sub-wavelength spin textures. In this work, we present a theoretical and numerical study of Raman Rabi frequency in the presence of evanescent driving fields. We show how spin textures can be created by spatially varying driving fields and demonstrate a skyrmionium lattice—a periodic array of topological spin excitations, each of which is composed of two skyrmions with opposite topological charges. Our results pave the way to quantum simulation of spin excitation dynamics in magnetic materials, especially of itinerant spin models.

Nonlinear effect of cold Cs2 molecular conversion from ultracold atoms in a tunneling four-level structure

Due to the inevitability of nonlinear collisions between particles in ultracold atomic condensate experiments, it is of great significance to study the nonlinear effect for producing ultracold molecules from atomic condensates. In this work, we investigate theoretically the nonlinear effect induced by the two-body collision for producing ultracold Cs2 molecules from ultracold atoms by the stimulated Raman adiabatic passage in a tunneling four-level structure. Under the two-photon resonance condition and the coherent population trapping state, the conversion efficiency is influenced significantly by the nonlinear parameter. Meanwhile, the optimized parameter ranges of the resonance tunneling strength at the unstable excited molecular states, the effective Rabi frequencies of the two-laser fields, and the detuning of the pump field for different nonlinear parameters are suggested to obtain the high conversion efficiency of Cs2 molecules at the ground state. Finally, a maximum conversion efficiency of up to 88.56% can be realized in the optimized parameter ranges.

Generation of cold Rydberg atoms at submicron distances from an optical nanofiber

We report on a controllable, hybrid quantum system consisting of cold Rydberg atoms and an optical nanofiber interface. Using a two-photon ladder-type excitation in $^{87}$Rb, we demonstrate both coherent and incoherent Rydberg excitation at submicron distances from the nanofiber surface. The 780 nm photon, near resonant to the $5S \rightarrow 5P$ transition, is mediated by the cooling laser, while the 482 nm light, near resonant to the $5P \rightarrow 29D$ transition, is mediated by the guided mode of the nanofiber. The population loss rate of the cold atom ensemble is used to measure the Rydberg population rate. A theoretical model is developed to interpret the results and link the population rate to the experimentally measured, effective Rabi frequency of the process. This work makes headway in the study of atom-surface interactions at submicron scales and the use of cold Rydberg atoms for all-fibered quantum networks and quantum simulations.

Electric-field control and noise protection of the flopping-mode spin qubit

We propose and analyze a novel "flopping-mode" mechanism for electric dipole spin resonance based on the delocalization of a single electron across a double quantum dot confinement potential. Delocalization of the charge maximizes the electronic dipole moment compared to the conventional single dot spin resonance configuration. We present a theoretical investigation of the flopping-mode spin qubit properties through the crossover from the double to the single dot configuration by calculating effective spin Rabi frequencies and single-qubit gate fidelities. The flopping-mode regime optimizes the artificial spin-orbit effect generated by an external micromagnet and draws on the existence of an externally controllable sweet spot, where the coupling of the qubit to charge noise is highly suppressed. We further analyze the sweet spot behavior in the presence of a longitudinal magnetic field gradient, which gives rise to a second order sweet spot with reduced sensitivity to charge fluctuations.

Plasmonic metaresonances: harnessing nonlocal effects for prospective biomedical applications

Metal nanoparticles (MNPs) possess optical concentration capabilities that can amplify and localize electromagnetic fields into nanometer length scales. The near-fields of MNPs can be used to tailor optical response of luminescent semiconductor quantum dots (QDs), resulting in fascinating optical phenomena. Plasmonic metaresonances (PMRs) form a class of such optical events gaining increasing popularity due to their promising prospects in sensing and switching applications. Unlike the basic excitonic and plasmonic resonances in MNP-QD nanohybrids, PMRs occur in the space/time domain. A nanohybrid experiences PMR when system parameters such as QD dipole moment, MNP-QD centre separation or submerging medium permittivity reach critical values, resulting in the plasmonically induced time delay of the effective Rabi frequency experienced by the QD asymptotically tending to infinity. Theoretical analyses of PMRs available in the literature utilize the local response approximation (LRA) which does not account for the nonlocal effects of the MNP, and neglect the MNP dependence of the QD decay and dephasing rates which hinder their applicability to QDs in the close vicinity of small MNPs. Here, we address these limitations using an approach based on the generalized nonlocal optical response (GNOR) theory which has proven to yield successful theoretical explanations of experimentally observed plasmonic phenomena. Our results indicate that, omission of the MNP nonlocal response and the associated decay/dephasing rate modifications of the QD tend to raise implications such as significant over-estimation of the QD dipole moment required to achieve PMR, under-estimation of the critical centre separation and prediction of significantly lower near-PMR QD absorption rates, in comparison to the improved GNOR based predictions. In light of our observations, we finally suggest two prospective applications of PMR based nanoswitches, namely, aptamer based in vitro cancer screening and thermoresponsive polymer based temperature sensing. To demonstrate the latter application, we develop and utilize a proof of concept (two dimensional) skin tumor model homogeneously populated by MNP-QD nanohybrids. Our simulations reveal a novel near-PMR physical phenomenon observable under perpendicular illumination, which we like to call the margin pattern reversal, where the spatial absorption pattern reverses when the near-PMR QDs switch from the bright to dark state.

Cavity-QED interactions of several atoms

We study many-atom van der Waals (vdW) forces arising from reversible atom–field interactions in cavity quantum electrodynamics by using a dressed-state approximation. In the most general case, a single-mode Dicke model for atoms, sharing an arbitrary number of excitations, placed in an imperfect cavity, has been developed that leads to the vdW potential of such a system. As special cases, we consider the single-excitation Dicke model and also the case of one atom in the presence of multi-photon excitation inside the cavity. In most of the paper, it is assumed that the atoms are distributed symmetrically with respect to the mode structure. This will decouple all asymmetric states, allowing us to ignore them throughout our calculations. The impact of asymmetric states is taken into account for a system wherein one atom, freely placed in a cavity, together with n − 1 equally-coupled atoms, is interacting with the cavity field. By assuming broadened Lorentzian modes instead of sharp ones, the cavity imperfections have been added to the calculations. The position dependence of the effective Rabi frequency is studied for the example of a planar cavity.

Damping-free collective oscillations of a driven two-component Bose gas in optical lattices

We explore quantum many-body physics of a driven Bose-Einstein condensate in optical lattices. The laser field induces a gap in the generalized Bogoliubov spectrum proportional to the effective Rabi frequency. The lowest lying modes in a driven condensate are characterized by zero group velocity and non-zero current. Thus, the laser field induces roton modes, which carry interaction in a driven condensate. We show that collective excitations below the energy of the laser-induced gap remain undamped, while above the gap they are characterized by a significantly suppressed Landau damping rate.

Three-photon Gaussian–Gaussian–Laguerre–Gaussian excitation of a localized atom to a highly excited Rydberg state

Optical vortices are currently one of the most intensively studied topics in light–matter interaction. In this work, a three-step axial Doppler- and recoil-free Gaussian–Gaussian-Laguerre–Gaussian (GGLG) excitation of a localized atom to the highly excited Rydberg state is presented. By assuming a large detuning for intermediate states, an effective quadrupole excitation related to the Laguerre–Gaussian (LG) excitation to the highly excited Rydberg state is obtained. This special excitation system radially confines the single highly excited Rydberg atom independently of the trapping system into a sharp potential landscape into the so-called ‘far-off-resonance optical dipole-quadrupole trap’ (FORDQT). The key parameters of the Rydberg excitation to the highly excited state, namely the effective Rabi frequency and the effective detuning including a position-dependent AC Stark shift, are calculated in terms of the basic parameters of the LG beam and of the polarization of the excitation lasers. It is shown that the obtained parameters can be tuned to have a precise excitation of a single atom to the desired Rydberg state as well. The features of transferring the optical orbital and spin angular momentum of the polarized LG beam to the atom via quadrupole Rydberg excitation offer a long-lived and controllable qudit quantum memory. In addition, in contrast to the Gaussian laser beam, the doughnut-shaped LG beam makes it possible to use a high intensity laser beam to increase the signal-to-noise ratio in quadrupole excitation with minimized perturbations coming from stray light broadening in the last Rydberg excitation process.

Antibunching dynamics of plasmonically mediated entanglement generation

Dissipative entanglement generation protocols embrace environmental interactions in order to generate long-lived entangled states. In this letter, we report on the anti-bunching dynamics for a pair of actively driven quantum emitters coupled to a shared dissipative plasmonic reservoir. We find that anti-bunching is a universal signature for entangled states generated by dissipative means and examine its use as an entanglement diagnostic. We discuss the experimental validation of plasmonically mediated entanglement generation by Hanbury Brown-Twiss interferometry with picosecond timing resolution determined by an effective two-qubit Rabi frequency, and we analyze the robustness of entanglement generation with respect to perturbations in local detunings, couplings, and driving fields.

Off-resonance NOVEL.

Dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) is theoretically able to enhance the signal in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments by a factor γe/γn, where γ's are the gyromagnetic ratios of an electron and a nuclear spin. However, DNP enhancements currently achieved in high-field, high-resolution biomolecular magic-angle spinning NMR are well below this limit because the continuous-wave DNP mechanisms employed in these experiments scale as ω0-n where n ∼ 1-2. In pulsed DNP methods, such as nuclear orientation via electron spin-locking (NOVEL), the DNP efficiency is independent of the strength of the main magnetic field. Hence, these methods represent a viable alternative approach for enhancing nuclear signals. At 0.35 T, the NOVEL scheme was demonstrated to be efficient in samples doped with stable radicals, generating 1H NMR enhancements of ∼430. However, an impediment in the implementation of NOVEL at high fields is the requirement of sufficient microwave power to fulfill the on-resonance matching condition, ω0I = ω1S, where ω0I and ω1S are the nuclear Larmor and electron Rabi frequencies, respectively. Here, we exploit a generalized matching condition, which states that the effective Rabi frequency, ω1Seff, matches ω0I. By using this generalized off-resonance matching condition, we generate 1H NMR signal enhancement factors of 266 (∼70% of the on-resonance NOVEL enhancement) with ω1S/2π = 5 MHz. We investigate experimentally the conditions for optimal transfer of polarization from electrons to 1H both for the NOVEL mechanism and the solid-effect mechanism and provide a unified theoretical description for these two historically distinct forms of DNP.