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Daniel Hartley

Publications and source records attributed to Daniel Hartley.

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Dynamical Casimir effect with screened scalar fields

Understanding the nature of dark energy and dark matter is one of modern physics' greatest open problems. Scalar-tensor theories with screened scalar fields like the chameleon model are among the most popular proposed solutions. In this article, we present the first analysis of the impact of a chameleon field on the dynamical Casimir effect, whose main feature is the particle production associated with a resonant condition of boundary periodic motion in cavities. For this, we employ a recently developed method to compute the evolution of confined quantum scalar fields in a globally hyperbolic spacetime by means of time-dependent Bogoliubov transformations. As a result, we show that particle production is reduced due to the presence of the chameleon field. In addition, our results for the Bogoliubov coefficients and the mean number of created particles agree with known results in the absence of a chameleon field. Our results initiate the discussion of the evolution of quantum fields on screened scalar field backgrounds.

gr-qc

Cavity optomechanics with ultra-cold Bose gases for quasiparticle state manipulation and prospects for sensing applications

Ensembles of ultra-cold atoms have been proven to be versatile tools for high precision sensing applications. Here, we present a method for manipulation and readout of the state of trapped clouds of ultra-cold bosonic atoms. In particular, we discuss the creation of coherent and squeezed states of quasiparticles and the coupling of quasiparticle modes through an external cavity field. This enables operations like state swapping and beam splitting which can be applied to realize a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) in frequency space. We present two explicit example applications in sensing: the measurement of the healing length of the condensate with the MZI scheme, and the measurement of an oscillating force gradient with a pulsed optomechanical readout scheme. Furthermore, we calculate fundamental limitations based on parameters of state-of-the-art technology.

quant-ph

A Quantum Klystron -- Controlling Quantum Systems with Modulated Electron Beams

Coherent control of quantum transitions -- indispensable in quantum technology -- generally relies on the interaction of quantum systems with electromagnetic radiation. Here, we theoretically demonstrate that the non-radiative electromagnetic near-field of a temporally modulated free-space electron beam can be utilized for coherent control of quantum systems. We show that such manipulation can be performed with only classical control over the electron beam itself, and is readily realizable with current technology. This approach may provide a pathway towards spectrally selective quantum control with nano-scale spatial resolution, harnessing the small de Broglie wavelength of electrons.

quant-ph

Quantum-enhanced screened dark energy detection

We propose an experiment based on a Bose-Einstein condensate interferometer for strongly constraining fifth-force models. Additional scalar fields from modified gravity or higher dimensional theories may account for dark energy and the accelerating expansion of the Universe. These theories have led to proposed screening mechanisms to fit within the tight experimental bounds on fifth-force searches. We show that our proposed experiment would greatly improve the existing constraints on these screening models by many orders of magnitude.

gr-qc

Quantum simulation of dark energy candidates

Additional scalar fields from scalar-tensor, modified gravity or higher dimensional theories beyond general relativity may account for dark energy and the accelerating expansion of the Universe. These theories have lead to proposed models of screening mechanisms, such as chameleon and symmetron fields, to account for the tight experimental bounds on fifth-force searches. Cold atom systems have been very successfully used to constrain the parameters of these screening models, and may in future eliminate the interesting parameter space of some models entirely. In this paper, we show how to manipulate a Bose-Einstein condensate to simulate the effect of any screened scalar field model coupled conformally to the metric. We give explicit expressions for the simulation of various common models. This result may be useful for investigating the computationally challenging evolution of particles on a screened scalar field background, as well as for testing the metrology scheme of an upcoming detector proposal.

gr-qc

Analogue simulation of gravitational waves in a 3+1 dimensional Bose-Einstein condensate

The recent detections of gravitational waves (GWs) by the LIGO and Virgo collaborations have opened the field of GW astronomy, intensifying interest in GWs and other possible detectors sensitive in different frequency ranges. Although strong GW producing events are rare and currently unpredictable, GWs can in principle be simulated in analogue systems at will in the lab. Simulation of GWs in a manifestly quantum system would allow for the study of the interaction of quantum phenomena with GWs. Such predicted interaction is exploited in a recently proposed Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) based GW detector. In this paper, we show how to manipulate a BEC to mimic the effect of a passing GW. By simultaneously varying the external potential applied to the BEC, and an external magnetic field near a Feshbach resonance, we show that the resulting change in speed of sound can directly reproduce a GW metric. We also show how to simulate a metric used in the recently proposed BEC based GW detector, to provide an environment for testing the proposed metrology scheme of the detector. Explicit expressions for simulations of various GW sources are given. This result is also useful to generally test the interaction of quantum phenomena with GWs in a curved spacetime analogue experiment.

gr-qc