Raman Detuning Research Articles

Observation of Momentum Space Josephson Effects in Weakly Coupled Bose-Einstein Condensates.

The momentum space Josephson effect describes the supercurrent flow between weakly coupled Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) at two discrete momentum states. Here, we experimentally observe this exotic phenomenon using a BEC with Raman-induced spin-orbit coupling, where the tunneling between two local band minima is implemented by the momentum kick of an additional optical lattice. A sudden quench of the Raman detuning induces coherent spin-momentum oscillations of the BEC, which is analogous to the ac Josephson effect. We observe both plasma and regular Josephson oscillations in different parameter regimes. The experimental results agree well with the theoretical model and numerical simulation and showcase the important role of nonlinear interactions. We also show that the measurement of the Josephson plasma frequency gives the Bogoliubov zero quasimomentum gap, which determines the mass of the corresponding pseudo-Goldstone mode, a long-sought phenomenon in particle physics. The observation of momentum space Josephson physics offers an exciting platform for quantum simulation and sensing utilizing momentum states as a synthetic degree.

Relationship between coherent population trapping oscillation and Raman detuning

Coherent population trapping (CPT) oscillation is a transient oscillation phenomenon based on the CPT effect, which is related to the Raman detuning of the coherent bichromatic laser fields from the hyperfine ground-states of three-level Λ system. In this work, sawtooth wave is adopted to modulate the frequency of microwave signal to make Raman detuning change uniformly and stepping. Meanwhile, by building the relationship between the microwave frequency modulation rate and the change rate of Raman detuning, the effects of the change rate and mode of Raman detuning on CPT oscillation are analyzed respectively. The results reveal that when the Raman detuning changes uniformly, the CPT oscillation will occur on condition that the change rate is high enough, and the excited oscillations show non-harmonic oscillation behavior. When the Raman detuning is triggered off by step change, the excited CPT oscillation is a damping oscillation, and the oscillation frequency is equal to the frequency of Raman detuning. The modulation of Raman detuning is realized by using sawtooth wave to modulate the microwave frequency, and then the complete establishment of CPT state and the complete attenuation of CPT oscillation process are achieved. This work presents a new modulation method to realize the CPT oscillation, which shows great application potential in the field of weak magnetic measurements and atomic clocks.

Control of the vortex lattice formation in coupled atom-molecular Bose–Einstein condensate in a double well potential: role of atom-molecule coupling, trap rotation frequency and detuning parameter

We study the vortex formation in coupled atomic and molecular condensates in a rotating double well trap by numerically solving the coupled Gross–Pitaevskii like equations. Starting with the atomic condensate in the double well potential we considered two-photon Raman photo-association for coherent conversion of atoms to molecules. It is shown that the competition between atom-molecule coupling strength and repulsive atom-molecule interaction controls the spacings between atomic and molecular vortices and the rotation frequency of the trap is the key player for controlling the number of visible atomic and molecular vortices. Whereas the Raman detuning controls the spacing between atomic and molecular vortices as well as the number of atomic and molecular vortices in the trap. We have shown by considering the molecular lattices the distance between two molecular vortices can be controlled by varying the Raman detuning. In addition we have found that the Feynman rule relating the total number of vortices and average angular momentum both for atoms and molecules can be satisfied by considering the atomic and molecular vortices those are hidden in density distribution and seen as singularities in phase distribution of the coupled system except for the lattice structure where molecular vortices are overlapped with each other. It is found that although the number of visible/core vortices in atomic and molecular vortex lattices depends significantly on the system parameters the number of atomic and molecular hidden vortices remains constant in most of the cases.

Diffraction of a Laguerre-Gaussian beam in Raman interaction with a spatially periodic pump field

We studied Fresnel diffraction of a Laguerre-Gaussian beam ${\text{LG}}_{p,l}$ with arbitrary azimuthal $l$ and radial $p$ indices on a grating induced during its Raman interaction with a spatially periodic pump field in an atomic medium. The diffraction pattern turned out to be more complex than the classical Talbot effect observed when a plane wave illuminates a two-dimensional grating. The simulation results show that, under certain conditions, at distances corresponding to the classical Talbot planes (integer and fractional), periodic amplitude-phase distributions appear. The diffraction patterns are not a probe-field image in the induced grating plane, but a regular array of vortex annular-shaped microbeams with an inhomogeneous intensity distribution depending on the $l$ and $p$ indices and with a topological charge equal to that of the initial probe beam. The intensity and spatial distribution of diffraction patterns can be controlled by Raman amplification in the induced grating by varying the pump-field intensity or the Raman detuning.

Topological nonlinear optics with spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensate in cavity

We investigate topological nonlinear optics with spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensate in a cavity. The cavity is driven by a pump laser and a weak probe laser. Both lasers excite Bose-Einstein condensate, in the presence of standard Raman process for spin-orbit coupling, to an intermediate storage level. We theoretically show that the quantum interference at the transitional pathways of dressed atomic states results in different types of optical transparencies, which get completely inverted in atomic damping induced gain regime. The synthetic pseudo-spin states also implant different phases in the probe field forcing modes in probe transparencies to form gapless Dirac cones, which become gapped in presence of Raman detuning. These features get interestingly enhanced in gain regime where the amplified part of probe transparencies appear as gapless topological edge-like states between the probe bulk modes and cause non-trivial phase transition. We illustrate that the nonlinear interactions of the pseudo-spin states also enhance the slow light features in probe transmission. The manipulation of dressed states for topological optical transparencies in our findings could be a crucial step towards topological photonics and their application in quantum computation.

Localization and spin dynamics of spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates in deep optical lattices.

We analytically and numerically discuss the dynamics of two pseudospin components Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) with spin-orbit coupling (SOC) in deep optical lattices. Rich localized phenomena, such as breathers, solitons, self-trapping, and diffusion, are revealed and strongly depend on the strength of the atomic interaction, SOC, Raman detuning, and the spin polarization (i.e., the initial population difference of atoms between the two pseudospin components of BECs). The critical conditions for the transition of localized states are derived analytically. Based on the critical conditions, the detailed dynamical phase diagram describing the different dynamical regimes is derived. When the Raman detuning satisfies a critical condition, localized states with a fixed initial spin polarization can be observed. When the critical condition is not satisfied, we use two quenching methods, i.e., suddenly and linearly quenching Raman detuning from the soliton or breather state, to discuss the spin dynamics, phase transition, and wave packet dynamics by numerical simulation. The sudden quenching results in a damped oscillation of spin polarization and transforms the system to a new polarized state. Interestingly, the linear quenching of Raman detuning induces a controllable phase transition from an unpolarized phase to an expected polarized phase, while the soliton or breather dynamics is maintained.

Effective triangular ladders with staggered flux from spin-orbit coupling in 1D optical lattices

Light-induced spin-orbit coupling is a flexible tool to study quantum magnetism with ultracold atoms. In this work we show that spin-orbit coupled Bose gases in a one-dimensional optical lattice can be mapped into a two-leg triangular ladder with staggered flux following a lowest-band truncation of the Hamiltonian. The effective flux and the ratio of the tunneling strengths can be independently adjusted to a wide range of values. We identify a certain regime of parameters where a hard-core boson approximation holds and the system realizes a frustrated triangular spin ladder with tunable flux. We study the properties of the effective spin Hamiltonian using the density-matrix renormalization-group method and determine the phase diagram at half-filling. It displays two phases: a uniform superfluid and a bond-ordered insulator. The latter can be stabilized only for low Raman detuning. Finally, we provide experimentally feasible trajectories across the parameter space of the SOC system that cross the predicted phase transition.

Influence of Raman laser sidebands effect on the measurement accuracy of cold atom gravimeter

The technology of electro-optic modulation is one of the several methods of generating the Raman beams. The experimental system based on this method is simple and much easier to implement, and the environmental adaptability is strong as well. However, this kind of modulation technology will produce additional laser lines, which may affect the measurement accuracy of cold atom gravimeter. Based on a homemade transportable cold atom gravimeter, the influence of Raman sideband effect on the accuracy of cold atom gravimeter is investigated in this paper. We analyze in detail the relationship between Raman sideband effect and some experimental parameters, such as the height of Raman retro-reflection mirror, the time of free fall of the atoms, the detuning of Raman laser, etc. It is found that those parameters have a dominant influence on the measured gravity resulting from Raman sideband effect. Besides, it is also found that the gravity measurements will be sensitive again to some experimental parameters in the case of Raman sideband effect while these parameters are usually insensitive in case of laser system without sideband effect. Finally, we investigate the relationship between Raman sideband effect and Raman detuning, and presente a method of evaluating the gravity induced by Raman sideband effect. The experimental results in this paper can provide a reference for reducing the influence of Raman sideband effect on the accuracy evaluation of cold atomic gravimeter.

Rotating Atomic Quantum Gases with Light-Induced Azimuthal Gauge Potentials and the Observation of the Hess-Fairbank Effect.

We demonstrate synthetic azimuthal gauge potentials for Bose-Einstein condensates from engineering atom-light couplings. The gauge potential is created by adiabatically loading the condensate into the lowest energy Raman-dressed state, achieving a coreless vortex state. The azimuthal gauge potentials act as effective rotations and are tunable by the Raman coupling and detuning. We characterize the spin textures of the dressed states, in agreements with the theory. The lowest energy dressed state is stable with a 4.5-s half-atom-number-fraction lifetime. In addition, we exploit the azimuthal gauge potential to demonstrate the Hess-Fairbank effect, the analogue of Meissner effect in superconductors. The atoms in the absolute ground state has a zero quasiangular momentum and transits into a polar-core vortex when the synthetic magnetic flux is tuned to exceed a critical value. Our demonstration serves as a paradigm to create topological excitations by tailoring atom-light interactions where both types of SO(3) vortices in the |⟨F[over →]⟩|=1 manifold, coreless vortices and polar-core vortices, are created in our experiment. The gauge field in the stationary Hamiltonian opens a path to investigating rotation properties of atomic superfluids under thermal equilibrium.

Observation of Quantum Interference and Coherent Control in a Photochemical Reaction.

Coherent control of reactants remains a long-standing challenge in quantum chemistry. In particular, we have studied laser-induced molecular formation (photoassociation) in a Raman-dressed spin-orbit-coupled ^{87}Rb Bose-Einstein condensate, whose spin quantum state is a superposition of multiple bare spin components. In contrast to the notably different photoassociation-induced fractional atom losses observed for the bare spin components of a statistical mixture, a superposition state with a comparable spin composition displays the same fractional loss on every spin component. We interpret this as the superposition state itself undergoing photoassociation. For superposition states induced by a large Raman coupling and zero Raman detuning, we observe a nearly complete suppression of the photoassociation rate. This suppression is consistent with a model based upon quantum destructive interference between two photoassociation pathways for colliding atoms with different spin combinations. This model also explains the measured dependence of the photoassociation rate on the Raman detuning at a moderate Raman coupling. Our work thus suggests that preparing atoms in quantum superpositions may represent apowerful new technique to coherently control photochemical reactions.

Slowing 80-ns light pulses by four-wave mixing in potassium vapor

We experimentally and theoretically study propagation of 80-ns Gaussian-like probe pulses in hot potassium vapor under conditions of four-wave mixing (FWM). The atomic scheme for FWM is off-resonant, double-$\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}$ atomic scheme, with pump and probe photons, mediated in the K vapor, generating new probe and conjugate photons. We define the subset of FWM parameters, one-photon pump detuning, two-photon pump-probe Raman detuning, vapor density, the pump Rabi frequencies, when slowed pulses exit the vapor are also Gaussian-like. When Gaussian-like pulses exit the cell we are able to compare theoretical and experimental results for fractional delays and broadening for the probe and conjugate. We have obtained fractional delays above 1. Results of the model are compared with the experiment, with and without the model of Doppler averaging, when the atom velocity distribution is divided into different number of groups. We analyze possible causes for pulse broadening and distortion of slowed probe pulses and show that they are the result of quite different behavior of the probe pulse in the FWM vapor. Besides presenting the first results of slowing 80-ns probe pulses, this work is a useful test of the numerical model and values of parameters taken in the model that are not known in experiments.

Localized spatially nonlinear matter waves in atomic-molecular Bose-Einstein condensates with space-modulated nonlinearity.

The intrinsic nonlinearity is the most remarkable characteristic of the Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) systems. Many studies have been done on atomic BECs with time- and space- modulated nonlinearities, while there is few work considering the atomic-molecular BECs with space-modulated nonlinearities. Here, we obtain two kinds of Jacobi elliptic solutions and a family of rational solutions of the atomic-molecular BECs with trapping potential and space-modulated nonlinearity and consider the effect of three-body interaction on the localized matter wave solutions. The topological properties of the localized nonlinear matter wave for no coupling are analysed: the parity of nonlinear matter wave functions depends only on the principal quantum number n, and the numbers of the density packets for each quantum state depend on both the principal quantum number n and the secondary quantum number l. When the coupling is not zero, the localized nonlinear matter waves given by the rational function, their topological properties are independent of the principal quantum number n, only depend on the secondary quantum number l. The Raman detuning and the chemical potential can change the number and the shape of the density packets. The stability of the Jacobi elliptic solutions depends on the principal quantum number n, while the stability of the rational solutions depends on the chemical potential and Raman detuning.

Dynamic structure factors and sum rules in two-component quantum gases with spin-orbit coupling

Sum rules for the dynamic structure factors are powerful tools to explore the collective behaviors in many-body systems at zero temperature as well as at finite temperatures. The recent remarkable realization of synthetic spin-orbit (SO) coupling in quantum gases is opening up new perspective to study the intriguing SO effects with ultracold atoms. So far, a specific type of SO coupling, which is generated by a pair of Raman laser beams, has been experimentally achieved in Bose-Einstein condensates of 87Rb and degenerate Fermi gases of 40K and 6Li. In the presence of SO coupling, the dynamic structure factors for the density fluctuation and spin fluctuation satisfy different sum rules. In particular, in the two-component quantum gases with inter-species Raman coupling, the f-sum rule for the spin fluctuation has an additional term proportional to the transverse spin polarization. Due to the coupling between the momentum and spin, the first moment of the dynamic structure factor does not necessarily possess the inversion symmetry, which is in strong contrast to the conventional system without SO coupling. Such an asymmetric behavior could be observed in both Fermi gases and Bose gases with Raman coupling. As a demonstration, we focus on the uniform case at zero temperature in this work. For the non-interacting Fermi gases, the asymmetric first moment appears only when the Raman detuning is finite. The asymmetric amplitude is quite limited, and it vanishes at both zero detuning and infinite detuning. For the weakly interacting Bose gases, the first moment is asymmetric in momentum space even at zero detuning, when the ground state spontaneously breaks the Z2 symmetry in the plane-wave condensation phase. Using the Bogoliubov method, the dynamic structure factor and its first moment are explicitly calculated for various interaction parameters. We find that the asymmetric behavior in the spin channel could be much more significant than in the density channel, and the asymmetric amplitude is enhanced as the interaction strength increases. Experimentally, the dynamic structure factors can be directly measured through the two photon Bragg scattering. Numeric simulations show that to observe the deviation of inversion symmetry in the first moment, the resolution of the Bragg spectroscopy should reach a required value. For the typical parameters of the rubidium atomic gas, the required resolution is about 10-2Er with Er being the recoil energy. Our predictions can be tested in the future experiment.

Measurement of collective excitations in a spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensate

We measure the collective excitation spectrum of a spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensate using Bragg spectroscopy. The spin-orbit coupling is generated by Raman dressing of atomic hyperfine states. When the Raman detuning is reduced, mode softening at a finite momentum is revealed, which provides insight towards a supersolid-like phase transition. We find that for the parameters of our system, this softening stops at a finite excitation gap and is symmetric under a sign change of the Raman detuning. Finally, using a moving barrier that is swept through the BEC, we also show the effect of the collective excitation on the fluid dynamics.

Spin-orbit-coupled topological Fulde-Ferrell states of fermions in a harmonic trap

Motivated by recent experimental breakthroughs in generating spin-orbit coupling in ultracold Fermi gases using Raman laser beams, we present a systematic study of spin-orbit-coupled Fermi gases confined in a quasi-one-dimensional trap in the presence of an in-plane Zeeman field (which can be realized using a finite two-photon Raman detuning). We find that a topological Fulde-Ferrell state will emerge, featuring finite-momentum Cooper pairing and zero-energy Majorana excitations localized near the edge of the trap based on the self-consistent Bogoliubov-de Genes (BdG) equations. We find analytically the wavefunctions of the Majorana modes. Finally using the time-dependent BdG we show how the finite-momentum pairing field manifests itself in the expansion dynamics of the atomic cloud.

Transient responses of transparency in a far-off resonant atomic system

Transient coherent oscillations in a closed Λ system under far-off resonant Raman fields were investigated theoretically. It has been found that the coherent superposition of the ground states can be formed due to the absorption even for initial maximal mixed ground states. The absorption oscillates with a period depending on the two-photon detuning when the system is initially in a transparent state and the two-photon Raman detuning is suddenly changed. The amplitude of the absorption decays with the decay rate of the ground states, which is different from the case when the lasers are applied resonantly. These transient coherent oscillations can be used to measure the relaxation rate of the ground states.

Crystallized and amorphous vortices in rotating atomic-molecular Bose-Einstein condensates

Vortex is a topological defect with a quantized winding number of the phase in superfluids and superconductors. Here, we investigate the crystallized (triangular, square, honeycomb) and amorphous vortices in rotating atomic-molecular Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) by using the damped projected Gross-Pitaevskii equation. The amorphous vortices are the result of the considerable deviation induced by the interaction of atomic-molecular vortices. By changing the atom-molecule interaction from attractive to repulsive, the configuration of vortices can change from an overlapped atomic-molecular vortices to carbon-dioxide-type ones, then to atomic vortices with interstitial molecular vortices, and finally into independent separated ones. The Raman detuning can tune the ratio of the atomic vortex to the molecular vortex. We provide a phase diagram of vortices in rotating atomic-molecular BECs as a function of Raman detuning and the strength of atom-molecule interaction.

Static properties of coupled atomic-molecular Bose-Einstein condensates in modified Gross-Pitaevskii approach

We analyze the stationary state properties of an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate coupled to a molecular condensate via a Raman photoassociation process using Gross-Pitaevskii and modified Gross-Pitaevskii model and compare the results. We find that the static properties depend crucially on the Raman detuning parameter, which can be experimentally varied. We also show how the analytical expressions for densities of atoms and molecules of the hybrid system can be found in the Thomas-Fermi approximation where kinetic energies are not included. We have explored the feasibility of maximum molecular BEC formation by varying the Raman detuning.

Collective excitations of the hybrid atomic-molecular Bose-Einstein condensates

We investigate the low-energy excitations of the spherically and axially trapped atomic Bose-Einstein condensate coupled to a molecular Bose gas by coherent Raman transitions. We apply the sum-rule approach of many-body response theory to derive the low-lying collective excitation frequencies of the hybrid atom-molecular system. The atomic and molecular ground-state densities obtained in Gross-Pitaevskii and modified Gross-Pitaevskii (including the higher order Lee-Huang-Yang term in interatomic interaction) approaches are used to find out the individual energy components and hence the excitation frequencies. We obtain different excitation energies for different angular momenta and study their characteristic dependence on the effective Raman detuning, the scattering length for atom-atom interaction, and the intensities of the coupling lasers. We show that the inclusion of the higher-order nonlinear interatomic interaction in modified Gross-Pitaevskii approach introduces significant corrections to the ground-state properties and the excitation frequencies both for axially and spherically trapped coupled $^{87}\mathrm{Rb}$ condensate system with the increase in the $s$-wave scattering length (for peak gas-parameter $\ensuremath{\geqslant}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}3}$). It has been shown that the excitation frequencies decrease with the increase in the effective Raman detuning as well as the $s$-wave scattering length, whereas excitation frequencies increase with the increase in the atom-molecular coupling strength. The frequencies in modified Gross-Pitaevskii approximation exhibit an upward trend after a certain value of scattering length and also largely deviate from the Gross-Pitaevskii results with the increase in $s$-wave scattering length. The strong dependence of excitation frequencies on the laser intensities used for Raman transitions manifests the role of atom-molecular coupling strength on the control of collective excitations. The collective excitation frequencies for the hybrid atom-molecular BEC differ significantly from the excitation frequencies of a pure atomic BEC system when the atom-to-molecule conversion efficiency increases due to the decrease in the effective Raman detuning and increase in the atom-molecule coupling strength.

Effect of coupling strength on atomic-to-molecular condensate conversion in Raman photoassociation

We study two-photon Raman photoassociation for creating a coherent molecular Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) from an atomic BEC. By exploring the dynamics of the coupled system, we show that the atom-to-molecule conversion efficiency can be controlled by changing the atom-molecule coupling strength and the effective two-photon Raman detuning. Atom-molecule coupling strength and the effective two-photon Raman detuning can be controlled by changing the laser intensity. We analyze the dynamics of the coupled atom-molecular condensate system by changing the laser intensity over a broad range, keeping the effective two-photon Raman detuning fixed. The effective two-photon Raman detuning depends on the two-photon detuning, Rabi frequencies, and the light shifting (AC Stark shift) of the levels. To keep the effective two-photon Raman detuning fixed, the two-photon detuning is varied to compensate for the light shifting of levels with laser intensity. The corresponding changes in the effective decay rates and the scattering length due to the change in the Rabi frequencies have been taken into account. Dependence of the conversion efficiency on the effective two-photon Raman detuning has also been studied by varying the laser intensity over a narrow range, keeping the two-photon detuning unchanged. The dynamics of the coupled system has been studied in Gross-Pitaevskii and modified Gross-Pitaevskii approaches to demonstrate the effect of the higher order nonlinearity (Lee-Huang-Yang term) with the increase in the laser intensity.