arXiv subjects

Chiara Mazzinghi

Publications and source records attributed to Chiara Mazzinghi.

9 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Trapping, manipulating and probing ultracold atoms: a quantum technologies tutorial

Engineered ultracold atomic systems are a valuable platform for fundamental quantum mechanics studies and the development of quantum technologies. At near zero absolute temperature, atoms exhibit macroscopic phase coherence and collective quantum behavior, enabling their use in precision metrology, quantum simulation, and even information processing. This review provides an introductory overview of the key techniques used to trap, manipulate, and detect ultracold atoms, while highlighting the main applications of each method. We outline the principles of laser cooling, magnetic and optical trapping, and the most widely used techniques, including optical lattices and tweezers. Next, we discuss the manipulation methods of atomic internal and external degrees of freedom, and we present atom interferometry techniques and how to leverage and control interatomic interactions. Next, we review common ensemble detection strategies, including absorption and fluorescence imaging, state-selective readout, correlation and quantum non-demolition measurements and conclude with high-resolution approaches. This review aims to provide newcomers to the field with a broad understanding of the experimental toolkit that underpins research in ultracold atom physics and its applications across quantum science and technology.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2025

Mach-Zehnder atom interferometry with non-interacting trapped Bose Einstein condensates

The coherent manipulation of a quantum wave is at the core of quantum sensing. For instance, atom interferometers require linear splitting and recombination processes to map the accumulated phase shift into a measurable population signal. Although Bose Einstein condensates (BECs) are the archetype of coherent matter waves, their manipulation between trapped spatial modes has been limited by the strong interparticle collisions. Here, we overcome this problem by using BECs with tunable interaction trapped in an innovative array of double-well potentials and exploiting quantum tunneling to realize linear beam splitting. We operate several Mach-Zehnder interferometers in parallel, canceling common-mode potential instabilities by a differential analysis, thus demonstrating a trapped-atom gradiometer. Furthermore, by applying a spin-echo protocol, we suppress additional decoherence sources and approach unprecedented coherence times of one second. Our interferometer will find applications in precision measurements of forces with a high spatial resolution and in linear manipulation of quantum entangled states for sensing with sub shot-noise sensitivity.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Long-wavelength optical lattices from optical beatnotes: theory and applications

We present a theoretical analysis of Beat-Note Superlattices (BNSLs), a recently demonstrated technique for generating periodic trapping potentials for ultracold atomic clouds, with arbitrarily large lattice spacings while maintaining interferometric stability. By combining two optical lattices with slightly different wavelengths, a beatnote intensity pattern is formed, generating, for low depths, an effective lattice potential with a periodicity equal to the wavelength associated to the difference between the wavevectors of the two lattices. We study the range of lattice depths and wavelengths under which this approximation is valid and investigate its robustness against perturbations. We present a few examples where the use of BNSLs could offer significant advantages in comparison to well established techniques for the manipulation of ultracold atomic gases. Our results highlight the potential of BNSLs for quantum simulation, atom interferometry, and other applications in quantum technologies.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2025

Joint estimation of phase and uncorrelated dephasing in a differential quantum interferometer

Precise measurements in optical and atomic systems often rely on differential interferometry. This method allows to handle large and correlated phase noise contributions -- such as environmental vibrations, thermal fluctuations, or instrumental drifts -- preventing them from blurring the signal. To date, this approach has primarily focused on extracting the differential phase shift. However, valuable information about the system is also contained in the width of uncorrelated phase fluctuations. In this work, we present a maximum likelihood approach for the simultaneous estimation of both the differential phase shift and the width of uncorrelated phase noise. Unlike conventional methods, our technique explicitly accounts for the data spreading and outperforms traditional ellipse fitting in terms of both precision and accuracy. We demonstrate our methodology using a quantum mechanical model of coupled interferometers, where uncorrelated dephasing arises from projection noise and interparticle interactions. Our results establish a novel approach to data analysis in differential interferometry that is readily applicable to current experiments.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Cavity-enhanced detection of spin polarization in a microfabricated atomic vapor cell

We demonstrate continuous Pound-Drever-Hall (PDH) nondestructive monitoring of the electron spin polarization of an atomic vapor in a microfabricated vapor cell within an optical resonator. The two-chamber silicon and glass cell contains $^{87}$Rb and 1.3 amagat of N$_{2}$ buffer gas, and is placed within a planar optical resonator formed by two mirrors with dichroic dielectric coatings to resonantly enhance the coupling to phase-modulated probe light near the D$_2$ line at 780 nm. We describe the theory of signal generation in this system, including the spin-dependent complex refractive index, cavity optical transfer functions, and PDH signal response to spin polarization. We observe cavity transmission and PDH signals across $\approx 200$ GHz of detuning around the atomic resonance line. By resonant optical pumping on the 795 nm D$_1$ line, we observe spin-dependent cavity line shifts, in good agreement with theory. We use the saturation of the line shift vs. optical pumping power to calibrate the number density and efficiency of the optical pumping. In the unresolved sideband regime, we observe quantum-noise-limited PDH readout of the spin polarization density, with a flat noise floor of $9 \times 10^9$ spins cm$^{-3}$ Hz$^{-1/2}$ for frequencies above 700 Hz. We note possible extensions of the technique.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2022

Single-domain Bose condensate magnetometer achieves energy resolution per bandwidth below $\hbar$

We present a magnetic sensor with energy resolution per bandwidth $E_R < \hbar$. We show how a $^{87}\mathrm{Rb}$ single domain spinor Bose-Einstein condensate, detected by non-destructive Faraday-rotation probing, achieves single shot dc magnetic sensitivity of $72(8)~\mathrm{fT}$ measuring a volume $V= 1091(30)~μ\mathrm{m}^3$ for $3.5~\mathrm{s}$, and thus $E_R = 0.075(16)~\hbar$. We measure experimentally the condensate volume, spin coherence time, and readout noise, and use phase-space methods, backed by 3+1D mean-field simulations, to compute the spin noise. Contributions to the spin noise include one-body and three-body losses and shearing of the projection noise distribution, due to competition of ferromagnetic contact interactions and quadratic Zeeman shifts. Nonetheless, the fully-coherent nature of the single-domain, ultracold two-body interactions allows the system to escape the coherence vs.~density trade-off that imposes an energy resolution limit on traditional spin-precession sensors. We predict that other Bose-condensed alkalis, especially the antiferromagnetic $^{23}\mathrm{Na}$, can further improve the energy resolution of this method.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2021

Cavity-enhanced polarization rotation measurements for low-disturbance probing of atoms

We propose and demonstrate cavity-enhanced polarization-rotation measurement as a means to detect magnetic effects in transparent media with greater sensitivity at equal optical disturbance to the medium. Using the Jones calculus, we compute the effective polarization rotation effect in a Fabry-Perot cavity containing a magnetic medium, including losses due to enclosure windows or other sources. The results show that when measuring polarization rotation, collecting the transmitted light has advantages in simplicity and linearity relative to collecting the reflected light. We demonstrate the technique by measuring Faraday rotation in a $^{87}$Rb atomic ensemble in the single-pass and cavity-enhanced geometries, and observe enhancement in good agreement with the theoretical predictions. We also demonstrate shot-noise-limited operation of the enhanced rotation scheme in the small-angle regime.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2020

Bose-Einstein Condensate Comagnetometer

We describe a comagnetometer employing the $f=1$ and $f=2$ ground state hyperfine manifolds of a $^{87}$Rb spinor Bose-Einstein condensate as co-located magnetometers. The hyperfine manifolds feature nearly opposite gyromagnetic ratios and thus the sum of their precession angles is only weakly coupled to external magnetic fields, while being highly sensitive to any effect that rotates both manifolds in the same way. The $f=1$ and $f=2$ transverse magnetizations and azimuth angles are independently measured by non-destructive Faraday rotation probing, and we demonstrate a $44.0(8)\text{dB}$ common-mode rejection in good agreement with theory. We show how spin-dependent interactions can be used to inhibit $2\rightarrow 1$ hyperfine relaxing collisions, extending to $\sim 1\text{s}$ the transverse spin lifetime of the $f=1,2$ mixtures. The technique could be used in high sensitivity searches for new physics on sub-millimeter length scales, precision studies of ultra-cold collision physics, and angle-resolved studies of quantum spin dynamics.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2019

Interferometric measurement of interhyperfine scattering lengths in $^{87}$Rb

We present interferometeric measurements of the $f=1$ to $f=2$ inter-hyperfine scattering lengths in a single-domain spinor Bose-Einstein condensate of $^{87}$Rb. The inter-hyperfine interaction leads to a strong and state-dependent modification of the spin-mixing dynamics with respect to a non-interacting description. We employ hyperfine-specific Faraday-rotation probing to reveal the evolution of the transverse magnetization in each hyperfine manifold for different state preparations, and a comagnetometer strategy to cancel laboratory magnetic noise. The method allows precise determination of inter-hyperfine scattering length differences, calibrated to intra-hyperfine scattering length differences. We report $(a_{3}^{(12)}-a_{2}^{(12)})/(a_{2}^{(1)}-a_{0}^{(1)})=-1.27(15)$ and $(a_{1}^{(12)}-a_{2}^{(12)})/(a_{2}^{(1)}-a_{0}^{(1)})=-1.31(13)$, limited by atom number uncertainty. With achievable control of atom number, we estimate precisions of $ \approx 0.3\%$ should be possible with this technique.

physics.atom-ph↗