arXiv subjects

A. Browaeys

Publications and source records attributed to A. Browaeys.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2024

Spin-1 Haldane phase in a chain of Rydberg atoms

We present a protocol to implement a spin-1 chain in Rydberg systems using three Rydberg states close to a F\"orster resonance. In addition to dipole-dipole interactions, strong van der Waals interactions naturally appear due to the presence of the F\"orster resonance and give rise to a highly tunable Hamiltonian. The resulting phase diagram is studied using the infinite density-matrix renormalization group and reveals a highly robust Haldane phase -- a prime example of a symmetry protected topological phase. We find experimentally accessible parameters to probe the Haldane phase in current Rydberg systems, and demonstrate an efficient adiabatic preparation scheme. This paves the way to probe the remarkable properties of spin fractionalization in the Haldane phase.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Directional superradiance in a driven ultracold atomic gas in free-space

Ultra-cold atomic systems are among the most promising platforms that have the potential to shed light on the complex behavior of many-body quantum systems. One prominent example is the case of a dense ensemble illuminated by a strong coherent drive while interacting via dipole-dipole interactions. Despite being subjected to intense investigations, this system retains many open questions. A recent experiment carried out in a pencil-shaped geometry reported measurements that seemed consistent with the emergence of strong collective effects in the form of a ``superradiant'' phase transition in free space, when looking at the light emission properties in the forward direction. Motivated by the experimental observations, we carry out a systematic theoretical analysis of the system's steady-state properties as a function of the driving strength and atom number, $N$. We observe signatures of collective effects in the weak drive regime, which disappear with increasing drive strength as the system evolves into a single-particle-like mixed state comprised of randomly aligned dipoles. Although the steady-state features some similarities to the reported superradiant to normal non-equilibrium transition, also known as cooperative resonance fluorescence, we observe significant qualitative and quantitative differences, including a different scaling of the critical drive parameter (from $N$ to $\sqrt{N}$). We validate the applicability of a mean-field treatment to capture the steady-state dynamics under currently accessible conditions. Furthermore, we develop a simple theoretical model that explains the scaling properties by accounting for interaction-induced inhomogeneous effects and spontaneous emission, which are intrinsic features of interacting disordered arrays in free space.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2023

Wave function network description and Kolmogorov complexity of quantum many-body systems

Programmable quantum devices are now able to probe wave functions at unprecedented levels. This is based on the ability to project the many-body state of atom and qubit arrays onto a measurement basis which produces snapshots of the system wave function. Extracting and processing information from such observations remains, however, an open quest. One often resorts to analyzing low-order correlation functions - i.e., discarding most of the available information content. Here, we introduce wave function networks - a mathematical framework to describe wave function snapshots based on network theory. For many-body systems, these networks can become scale free - a mathematical structure that has found tremendous success in a broad set of fields, ranging from biology to epidemics to internet science. We demonstrate the potential of applying these techniques to quantum science by introducing protocols to extract the Kolmogorov complexity corresponding to the output of a quantum simulator, and implementing tools for fully scalable cross-platform certification based on similarity tests between networks. We demonstrate the emergence of scale-free networks analyzing data from Rydberg quantum simulators manipulating up to 100 atoms. We illustrate how, upon crossing a phase transition, the system complexity decreases while correlation length increases - a direct signature of build up of universal behavior in data space. Comparing experiments with numerical simulations, we achieve cross-certification at the wave-function level up to timescales of 4 $μ$ s with a confidence level of 90%, and determine experimental calibration intervals with unprecedented accuracy. Our framework is generically applicable to the output of quantum computers and simulators with in situ access to the system wave function, and requires probing accuracy and repetition rates accessible to most currently available platforms.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2022

Microwave-engineering of programmable XXZ Hamiltonians in arrays of Rydberg atoms

We use the resonant dipole-dipole interaction between Rydberg atoms and a periodic external microwave field to engineer XXZ spin Hamiltonians with tunable anisotropies. The atoms are placed in 1D and 2D arrays of optical tweezers, allowing us to study iconic situations in spin physics, such as the implementation of the Heisenberg model in square arrays, and the study of spin transport in 1D. We first benchmark the Hamiltonian engineering for two atoms, and then demonstrate the freezing of the magnetization on an initially magnetized 2D array. Finally, we explore the dynamics of 1D domain wall systems with both periodic and open boundary conditions. We systematically compare our data with numerical simulations and assess the residual limitations of the technique as well as routes for improvements. The geometrical versatility of the platform, combined with the flexibility of the simulated Hamiltonians, opens exciting prospects in the field of quantum simulation, quantum information processing and quantum sensing.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

Laser driven superradiant ensembles of two-level atoms near Dicke's regime

We report the experimental observation of superradiant emission emanating from an elongated dense ensemble of laser cooled two-level atoms, with a radial extent smaller than the transition wavelength. In the presence of a strong driving laser, we observe that the system is superradiant along its symmmetry axis. This occurs even though the driving laser is orthogonal to the superradiance direction. This superradiance modifies the spontaneous emission, and, resultantly, the Rabi oscillations. We also investigate Dicke superradiance in the emission of an almost fully-inverted system as a function of atom numnber. The experimental results are in qualitative agreement with ab-initio, beyond-mean-field calculations.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2019

Near-resonant light scattering by a sub-wavelength ensemble of identical atoms

We study theoretically the scattering of light by an ensemble of $N$ resonant atoms in a sub-wavelength volume. We consider the low intensity regime so that each atom responds linearly to the field. While $N$ non-interacting atoms would scatter $N^2$ more than a single atom, we find that $N$ interacting atoms scatter less than a single atom near resonance. In addition, the scattered power presents strong fluctuations, either from one realization to another or when varying the excitation frequency. We analyze this counter-intuitive behavior in terms of collective modes resulting from the light-induced dipole-dipole interactions. We find that for small samples, their properties are governed only by their volume when $N\gtrsim 20$.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2019

Measurement of the atom-surface van der Waals interaction by transmission spectroscopy in a wedged nano-cell

We demonstrate a method for measuring atom-surface interactions using transmission spectroscopy of thermal vapors confined in a wedged nano-cell. The wedged shape of the cell allows complementary measurements of both the bulk atomic vapor and atoms close to surfaces experiencing strong van der Waals atom-surface interaction. These are used to tightly constrain the dipole-dipole collisional parameters of a theoretical model for transmission spectra that accounts for atom-surface interactions, cavity effects, collisions with the surface of the cell and atomic motion. We illustrate this method on a cesium vapor in a sapphire cell, find $C_3=1.3\pm0.1$\,kHz.$μ$m$^3$ and demonstrate that even the weakest of the van der Waals atom-surface interaction coefficients - for ground-state alkali atom transitions - can be determined with a very good precision. This result paves the way towards a precise quantitative characterization of atom-surface interactions in a wide range of atom-based nano-devices.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2019

Fabrication and characterization of super-polished wedged borosilicate nano-cells

We report on the fabrication of an all-glass vapor cell with a thickness varying linearly between (exactly) 0 and ~ 1 μm. The cell is made in Borofloat glass that allows super polish roughness, a full optical bonding assembling and easy filling with alkali vapors. We detail the challenging manufacture steps and present experimental spectra resulting from off-axis fluorescence and transmission spectroscopy of the Cesium D1 line. The very small surface roughness of 1 Angström rms is promising to investigate the atom-surface interaction or to minimize parasite stray light.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2019

Optical transmission of an atomic vapor in the mesoscopic regime

By measuring the transmission of near-resonant light through an atomic vapor confined in a nano-cell we demonstrate a mesoscopic optical response arising from the non-locality induced by the motion of atoms with a phase coherence length larger than the cell thickness. Whereas conventional dispersion theory -- where the local atomic response is simply convolved by the Maxwell-Boltzmann velocity distribution -- is unable to reproduce the measured spectra, a model including a non-local, size-dependent susceptibility is found to be in excellent agreement with the measurements. This result improves our understanding of light-matter interaction in the mesoscopic regime and has implications for applications where mesoscopic effects may degrade or enhance the performance of miniaturized atomic sensors.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2018

The Collective Lamb Shift of a Nanoscale Atomic Vapour Layer within a Sapphire Cavity

We measure the near-resonant transmission of light through a dense medium of potassium vapor confined in a cell with nanometer thickness in order to investigate the origin and validity of the collective Lamb-shift. A complete model including the multiple reflections in the nano-cell accurately reproduces the observed strong asymmetry of the line shape and allows extraction of a density dependent shift of the atomic resonance. We observe an additional, unexpected dependence of this shift with the thickness of the medium. This extra dependence demands further experimental and theoretical investigations.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2017

Homogenization of an ensemble of interacting resonant scatterers

We study theoretically the concept of homogenization in optics using an ensemble of randomly distributed resonant stationary atoms with density $ρ$. The ensemble is dense enough for the usual condition for homogenization, viz. $ρλ^3 \gg 1$, to be reached. Introducing the coherent and incoherent scattered powers, we define two criteria to define the homogenization regime. We find that when the excitation field is tuned in a broad frequency range around the resonance, none of the criteria for homogenization is fulfilled, meaning that the condition $ρλ^3\gg 1$ is not sufficient to characterize the homogenized regime around the atomic resonance. We interpret these results as a consequence of the light-induced dipole-dipole interactions between the atoms, which implies a description of scattering in terms of collective modes rather than as a sequence of individual scattering events. Finally, we show that, although homogenization can never be reached for a dense ensemble of randomly positioned laser-cooled atoms around resonance, it becomes possible if one introduces spatial correlations in the positions of the atoms or non-radiative losses, such as would be the case for organic molecules or quantum dots coupled to a phonon bath.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2016

Collective resonance fluorescence in small and dense atom clouds: Comparison between theory and experiment

We study the emergence of a collective optical response of a cold and dense $^{87}$Rb atomic cloud to a near-resonant low-intensity light when the atom number is gradually increased. Experimental observations are compared with microscopic stochastic simulations of recurrent scattering processes between the atoms that incorporate the atomic multilevel structure and the optical measurement setup. We analyze the optical response of an inhomogeneously-broadened gas and find that the experimental observations of the resonance line shifts and the total collected scattered light intensity in cold atom clouds substantially deviate from those of thermal atomic ensembles, indicating strong light-induced resonant dipole-dipole interactions between the atoms. At high densities, the simulations also predict a significantly slower decay of light-induced excitations in cold than in thermal atom clouds. The role of dipole-dipole interactions is discussed in terms of resonant coupling examples and the collective radiative excitation eigenmodes of the system.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2016

Coherent scattering of near-resonant light by a Dense Microscopic Cold Atomic cloud

We measure the coherent scattering of light by a cloud of laser-cooled atoms with a size comparable to the wavelength of light. By interfering a laser beam tuned near an atomic resonance with the field scattered by the atoms we observe a resonance with a red-shift, a broadening, and a saturation of the extinction for increasing atom numbers. We attribute these features to enhanced light-induced dipole-dipole interactions in a cold, dense atomic ensemble that result in a failure of standard predictions such as the "cooperative Lamb shift". The description of the atomic cloud by a mean-field model based on the Lorentz-Lorenz formula that ignores scattering events where light is scattered recurrently by the same atom and by a microscopic discrete dipole model that incorporates these effects lead to progressively closer agreement with the observations, despite remaining differences.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2016

Optical resonance shifts in the fluorescence of thermal and cold atomic gases

We show that the resonance shifts in the fluorescence of a cold gas of rubidium atoms substantially differ from those of thermal atomic ensembles that obey the standard continuous medium electrodynamics. The analysis is based on large-scale microscopic numerical simulations and experimental measurements of the resonance shifts in a steady-state response in light propagation.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2015

Propagation of light through small clouds of cold interacting atoms

We demonstrate experimentally that a cloud of cold atoms with a size comparable to the wavelength of light can induce large group delays on a laser pulse when the laser is tightly focused on it and is close to an atomic resonance. Delays as large as -10 ns are observed, corresponding to "superluminal" propagation with negative group velocities as low as -300 m/s. Strikingly, this large delay is associated with a moderate extinction owing to the very small size of the cloud and to the light-induced interactions between atoms. It implies that a large phase shift is imprinted on the continuous laser beam, and opens interesting perspectives for applications to quantum technologies.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2015

Direct measurement of the Wigner time-delay for the scattering of light by a single atom

We have implemented the gedanken experiment of an individual atom scattering a wave packet of near-resonant light, and measured the associated Wigner time-delay as a function of the frequency of the light. In our apparatus the atom behaves as a two-level system and we have found delays as large as 42 nanoseconds at resonance, limited by the lifetime of the excited state. This delay is an important parameter in the problem of collective near-resonant scattering by an ensemble of interacting particles, which is encountered in many areas of physics.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2014

Observation of suppression of light scattering induced by dipole-dipole interactions in a cold atomic ensemble

We study the emergence of collective scattering in the presence of dipole-dipole interactions when we illuminate a cold cloud of rubidium atoms with a near-resonant and weak intensity laser. The size of the atomic sample is comparable to the wavelength of light. When we gradually increase the atom number from 1 to 450, we observe a broadening of the line, a small red shift and, consistently with these, a strong suppression of the scattered light with respect to the noninteracting atom case. Numerical simulations, which include the internal atomic level structure, agree with the data.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2013

Evaporative cooling of a small number of atoms in a single-beam microscopic dipole trap

We demonstrate experimentally the evaporative cooling of a few hundred rubidium 87 atoms in a single-beam microscopic dipole trap. Starting from 800 atoms at a temperature of 125microKelvins, we produce an unpolarized sample of 40 atoms at 110nK, within 3s. The phase-space density at the end of the evaporation reaches unity, close to quantum degeneracy. The gain in phase-space density after evaporation is 10^3. We find that the scaling laws used for much larger numbers of atoms are still valid despite the small number of atoms involved in the evaporative cooling process. We also compare our results to a simple kinetic model describing the evaporation process and find good agreement with the data.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗