arXiv subjects

S. Kallush

Publications and source records attributed to S. Kallush.

9 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2017

Directional Quantum-Controlled Chemistry: Generating Aligned Ultracold Molecules via Photoassociation

Photoassociation of ultracold atoms is shown to lead to alignment of the product molecules along the excitation laser polarization axis. We theoretically investigate pulsed photoassociation of $^{87}Rb$ atoms into a specific weakly-bound level of the a $^3Σ_u^+$ metastable electronic state and find both stationary and time-dependent field-free alignment. Although a transform-limited pulse yields significant alignment, a frequency-chirped pulse dramatically enhances the molecular formation rate at the cost of a slight decrease in the alignment. Employing multiple pulses synchronized with the vibrational and rotational periods leads to coherent enhancement of both population and alignment of the target state.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

Efficient Formation of Ultracold Molecules with Chirped Nanosecond Pulses

We describe experiments and associated quantum simulations involving the production of ultracold $^{87}$Rb$_{2}$ molecules with nanosecond pulses of frequency-chirped light. With appropriate chirp parameters, the formation is dominated by coherent processes. For a positive chirp, excited molecules are produced by photoassociation early in the chirp, then transferred into high vibrational levels of the lowest triplet state by stimulated emission later in the chirp. Generally good agreement is seen between the data and the simulations. Shaping of the chirp can lead to a significant enhancement of the formation rate. Further improvements using higher intensities and different intermediate states are predicted.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2016

Enhancement of Ultracold Molecule Formation Using Shaped Nanosecond Frequency Chirps

We demonstrate that judicious shaping of a nanosecond-time-scale frequency chirp can dramatically enhance the formation rate of ultracold $^{87}$Rb$_{2}$ molecules. Starting with ultracold $^{87}$Rb atoms, we apply pulses of frequency-chirped light to first photoassociate the atoms into excited molecules and then, later in the chirp, de-excite these molecules into a high vibrational level of the lowest triplet state, $a \, ^{3}Σ_{u}^{+}$. The enhancing chirp shape passes through the absorption and stimulated emission transitions relatively slowly, thus increasing their adiabaticity, but jumps quickly between them to minimize the effects of spontaneous emission. Comparisons with quantum simulations for various chirp shapes support this enhancement mechanism.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2013

Quantum control with noisy fields: computational complexity vs. sensitivity to noise

A closed quantum system is defined as completely controllable if an arbitrary unitary transformation can be executed using the available controls. In practice, control fields are a source of unavoidable noise, which has to be suppressed to retain controllability. Can one design control fields such that the effect of noise is negligible on the time-scale of the transformation? This question is intimately related to the fundamental problem of a connection between the computational complexity of the control problem and the sensitivity of the controlled system to noise. The present study considers a paradigm of control, where the Lie-algebraic structure of the control Hamiltonian is fixed, while the size of the system increases with the dimension of the Hilbert space representation of the algebra. We find two types of control tasks, easy and hard. Easy tasks are characterized by a small variance of the evolving state with respect to the operators of the control operators. They are relatively immune to noise and the control field is easy to find. Hard tasks have a large variance, are sensitive to noise and the control field is hard to find. The influence of noise increases with the size of the system, which is measured by the scaling factor $N$ of the largest weight of the representation. For fixed time and control field as O(N) for easy tasks and as $O(N^2)$ for hard tasks. As a consequence, even in the most favorable estimate, for large quantum systems, generic noise in the controls dominates for a typical class of target transformations, i.e., complete controllability is destroyed by noise.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2012

Production of Ultracold Molecules with Chirped Nanosecond Pulses: Evidence for Coherent Effects

We use frequency-chirped light on the nanosecond time scale to produce ultracold $^{87}$Rb$_{2}$ molecules in the lowest triplet state via the process of photoassociation. Comparing to quantum simulations of the molecular formation, we conclude that coherent stimulated emission plays an important role and is primarily responsible for the significant difference observed between positive and negative chirps.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2011

Coherent control of ultracold 85Rb trap-loss collisions with nonlinearly frequency-chirped light

We present results on coherent control of ultracold trap-loss collisions using 40 ns pulses of nonlinearly frequency-chirped light. The chirps, either positive or negative, sweep ~1 GHz in 100 ns and are centered at various detunings below the D2 line of 85Rb. At each center detuning, we compare the collisional rate constant beta for chirps that are linear in time, concave-down and concave-up. For positive chirps, we find that beta generally depends very little on the shape of the chirp. For negative chirps, however, we find that beta can be enhanced by up to 50(20)% for the case of the concave-down shape. This occurs at detunings where the evolution of the wavepacket is expected to be coherent. An enhancement at these detunings is also seen in quantum mechanical simulations of the collisional process.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2007

Grid methods for cold molecules : determination of photoassociation lineshapes and rate constants

A description of photoassociation by CW laser is formulated in the framework of grid methods. The Hamiltonian describing one or several bound states coupled to a multiple of continuum manifolds via a radiative field is written in the energy representation and diagonalized. The generality of the treatment allows to compute accurately and efficiently physical properties such as non-linear high-intensity energy shifts, line shapes, and photoassociation rates both for isolated and non-isolated resonances. Application is given to sodium photoassociation in the experimental conditions of Mc Kenzie {\it et al} [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 88}, 090403 (2002)]. Inverted region for the dependency of the rate vs. the intensity and non-symmetric lineshapes were predicted to occur above the saturation limit. Comparison with the model of Bohn and Julienne [Phys. Rev. A {\bf 60}, 414 (1999)] is discussed.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2006

Coherent Control of Ultracold Collisions with Chirped Light: Direction Matters

We demonstrate the ability to coherently control ultracold atomic Rb collisions using frequency-chirped light on the nanosecond time scale. For certain center frequencies of the chirp, the rate of inelastic trap-loss collisions induced by negatively chirped light is dramatically suppressed compared to the case of a positive chirp. We attribute this to a fundamental asymmetry in the system: an excited wavepacket always moves inward on the attractive molecular potential. For a positive chirp, the resonance condition moves outward in time, while for a negative chirp, it moves inward, in the same direction as the excited wavepacket; this allows multiple interactions between the wavepacket and the light, enabling the wavepacket to be returned coherently to the ground state. Classical and quantum calculations support this interpretation.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2005

The Quantum Governor: Automatic quantum control and reduction of the influence of noise without measuring

The problem of automatically protecting a quantum system against noise in a closed circuit is analyzed. A general scheme is developed built from two steps. At first, a distillation step is induced in which undesired components are removed to another degree of freedom of the system. Later a recovering step is employed which the system gains back its initial density. An Optimal-Control method is used to generate the distilling operator. The scheme is demonstrated by a simulation of a two level byte influenced by white noise. Undesired deviations from the target were shown to be reduced by at least two orders of magnitude on average. The relations between the quantum version of the classical Watt's Governor and the field of quantum information are also discussed.

quant-ph↗