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Xiaoji Zhou

Publications and source records attributed to Xiaoji Zhou.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

Effective preparation and collisional decay of atomic condensate in excited bands of an optical lattice

We present a method for the effective preparation of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) into the excited bands of an optical lattice via a standing-wave pulse sequence. With our method, the BEC can be prepared in either a single Bloch state in a excited-band, or a coherent superposition of states in different bands. Our scheme is experimentally demonstrated by preparing a $^{87}$Rb BEC into the $d$-band and the superposition of $s$- and $d$-band states of a one-dimensional optical lattice, within a few tens of microseconds. We further measure the decay of the BEC in the $d$-band state, and carry an analytical calculation for the collisional decay of atoms in the excited-band states. Our theoretical and experimental results consist well.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

A momentum filter for atomic gas

We propose and demonstrate a momentum filter for atomic gas based on a designed Talbot-Lau interferometer. It consists in two identical optical standing wave pulses separated by a delay equal to odd multiples of the half Talbot time. The one dimensional momentum width along the long direction of a cigar shape condensate is rapidly and greatly purified to a minimum, which corresponds to the ground state energy of the confining trap in our experiment. We find good agreement between theoretical analysis and experimental results. The filter is also effective for non-condensed cold atoms and could be applied widely.

physics.atm-clus↗

Density Operator Description of Atomic Ordered Spatial Modes in Cavity QED

We present a quantum Monte-Carlo simulation for a pumped atom in a strong coupling cavity with dissipation, where two ordered spatial modes are formed for the atomic probability density, with the peaks distributed either only in the odd sites or only in the even ones of the lattice formed by the cavity field. A mixed state density operator model, which describes the coupling between different atomic spatial modes and the corresponding cavity field components, is proposed, which goes beyond the pure state interpretation. We develop a new decomposition treatment to derive the atomic spatial modes as well as the cavity field statistics from the simulation results for the steady state. With this treatment, we also investigate the dynamical process for the probabilities of the atomic spatial modes in the adiabatic limit. According to the analysis of the fitting error between the simulation results and the density operator model, the latter is a good description for the system.

quant-ph↗

Critical correlations in an ultracold Bose gas revealed by means of a temporal Talbot-Lau interferometer

We study experimentally the critical correlation in an ultra-cold Bose gas with a temporal Talbot-Lau (TL) interferometer. Near the critical temperature, we observe a bi-modal density distribution in an ultra-cold Bose gas after the application of the TL interferometer. The measured fraction of the narrower peak in the density distribution displays a clear peak within the critical regime. The peak position agrees with the critical temperature calculated with the finite-size and interaction corrections. The critical exponents are extracted from the peak and they agree with the critical exponents for the correlation length.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

Cooperative scattering measurement of coherence in a spatially modulated Bose gas

Correlations of a Bose gas released from an optical lattice are measured using superradiant scattering. Conditions are chosen so that after initial incident light pumping at the Bragg angle for diffraction, due to matter wave amplification and mode competition, superradiant scattering into the Bragg diffracted mode is preponderant. A temporal analysis of the superradiant scattering gain reveals periodical oscillations and damping due to the initial lack of coherence between lattice sites. Such damping is used for characterizing first order spatial correlations in our system with a precision of one lattice period.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

Exploring multi-band excitations of interacting Bose gases in a 1D optical lattice by coherent scattering

We use a coherent Bragg diffraction method to impart an external momentum to ultracold bosonic atoms trapped in a one-dimensional optical lattice. This method is based on the application of a single light pulse, with conditions where scattering of photons can be resonantly amplified by the atomic density grating. An oscillatory behavior of the momentum distribution resulting from the time evolution in the lattice potential is then observed. By measuring the oscillating frequencies, we extract multi-band energy structures of single-particle excitations with zero pseudo-momentum transfer for a wide range of lattice depths. The excitation energy structures reveal the interaction effect through the whole range of lattice depth.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

Manipulating the momentum state of a condensate by sequences of standing wave pulses

We analyze the effects of sequences of standing wave pulses on a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). Experimental observations are in good agreement with a numerical simulation based on the band structure theory in the optical lattice. We also demonstrate that a coherent control method based on such sequences of pulses is very efficient for experimentally designing specific momentum states.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

Mode competition in superradiant scattering of matter waves

Superradiant Rayleigh scattering in a Bose gas released from an optical lattice is analyzed with incident light pumping at the Bragg angle for resonant light diffraction. We show competition between superradiance scattering into the Bragg mode and into end-fire modes clearly leads to suppression of the latter at even relatively low lattice depths. A quantum light-matter interaction model is proposed for qualitatively explaining this result.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

Laser driving of Superradiant scattering at variable incidence angle

We study superradiant scattering from a Bose-Einstein condensate using a pump laser incident at variable angle and show the presence of asymmetrically populated scattering modes. Experimental data reveal that the direction of the pump laser plays a significant role in the formation of this asymmetry, result which is in good agreement with numerical simulations based on coupled Maxwell-Schrödinger equations. Our study complements the gap of previous work in which the pump laser was only applied along the short axis or the long axis of a condensate, and extends our knowledge about cooperative scattering processes.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

Rapid non-adiabatic loading in an optical lattice

We present a scheme for non-adiabatically loading a Bose-Einstein condensate into the ground state of a one dimensional optical lattice within a few tens of microseconds typically, i.e. in less than half the Talbot period. This technique of coherent control is based on sequences of pulsed perturbations and experimental results demonstrate its feasibility and effectiveness. As the loading process is much shorter than the traditional adiabatic loading timescale, this method may find many applications.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

Detection of saturated absorption spectroscopy at high sensitivity with displaced crossovers

We present an experimental approach to detect the saturated absorption spectroscopy different from conventional scheme. Using this approach, crossovers are removed to avoid their overlap with other peaks in the spectrum and sensitivity of detection could be enhanced, so the spectrum could reflect energy structure of atoms more explicitly. On the other hand, without harmful influence from crossovers, locking range of the error signal is significantly increased and symmetry of the dispersion line shape is perfectly reserved, so reliability of frequency stabilization could be improved.

physics.atom-ph↗

Observation of a red-blue detuning asymmetry in matter-wave superradiance

We report the first experimental observations of strong suppression of matter-wave superradiance using blue-detuned pump light and demonstrate a pump-laser detuning asymmetry in the collective atomic recoil motion. In contrast to all previous theoretical frameworks, which predict that the process should be symmetric with respect to the sign of the pump-laser detuning, we find that for condensates the symmetry is broken. With high condensate densities and red-detuned light, the familiar distinctive multi-order, matter-wave scattering pattern is clearly visible, whereas with blue-detuned light superradiance is strongly suppressed. In the limit of a dilute atomic gas, however, symmetry is restored.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

Atomic spatial coherence with spontaneous emission in a strong coupling cavity

The role of spontaneous emission in the interaction between a two-level atom and a pumped micro-cavity in the strong coupling regime is discussed in this paper. Especially, using a quantum Monte-Carlo simulation, we investigate atomic spatial coherence. It is found that atomic spontaneous emission destroys the coherence between neighboring lattice sites, while the cavity decay does not. Furthermore, our computation of the spatial coherence function shows that the in-site locality is little affected by the cavity decay, but greatly depends on the cavity pump amplitude.

physics.atom-ph↗

Roughness with a finite correlation length in the Microtrap

We analyze the effects of roughness in the magnitude of the magnetic field produced by a current carrying microwire, which is caused by geometric fluctuation of the edge of wire. The relation between the fluctuation of the trapping potential and the height that atom trap lies above the wire is consistent with the experimental data very well, when the colored noise with a finite correlation length is considered. On this basis, we generate the random potential and get the density distribution of the BEC atoms by solving the Gross-Pitaevskii equation, which coincides well with the experimental image, especially in the number of fragmentations. The results help us further understand the nature of the fluctuation and predict the possible application in the precise measurement.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

Magic Wavelengths for Terahertz Clock Transitions

Magic wavelengths for laser trapping of boson isotopes of alkaline-earth Sr, Ca and Mg atoms are investigated while considering terahertz clock transitions between the $^{3}P_{0}, ^{3}P_{1}, ^{3}P_{2}$ metastable triplet states. Our calculation shows that magic wavelengths of trapping laser do exist. This result is important because those metastable states have already been used to realize accurate clocks in the terahertz frequency domain. Detailed discussions for magic wavelength for terahertz clock transitions are given in this paper.

physics.atom-ph↗

Imprinting Light Phase on Matter Wave Gratings in Superradiance Scattering

Superradiance scattering from a Bose-Einstein condensate is studied with a two-frequency pumping beam. We demonstrate the possibility of fully tuning the backward mode population as a function of the locked initial relative phase between the two frequency components of the pumping beam. This result comes from an imprinting of this initial relative phase on two matter wave gratings, formed by the forward mode or backward mode condensate plus the condensate at rest, so that cooperative scattering is affected. A numerical simulation using a semiclassical model agrees with our observations.

quant-ph↗

High Order Momentum Modes by Resonant Superradiant Scattering

The spatial and time evolutions of superradiant scattering are studied theoretically for a weak pump beam with different frequency components traveling along the long axis of an elongated Bose-Einstein condensate. Resulting from the analysis for mode competition between the different resonant channels and the local depletion of the spatial distribution in the superradiant Rayleigh scattering, a new method of getting a large number of high-order forward modes by resonant frequency components of the pump beam is provided, which is beneficial to a lager momentum transfer in atom manipulation for the atom interferometry and atomic optics.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

Cooperative atomic scattering of light from a laser with a colored noise spectrum

The collective atomic recoil lasing is studied for an ultra-cold and collisionless atomic gas in a partially coherent pump with a colored noise. Compared to white noise, correlations in colored noise are found to be able to greatly enhance or suppress the growth rate, above or below a critical detuning. Effects on cooperative scattering of light for noise correlation time, noise intensity and pump-probe detuning are discussed. This result is consistent with our simulation and linear analysis about the evolution equations in the regions of instability.

physics.atom-ph↗