arXiv subjects

Yvan Castin

Publications and source records attributed to Yvan Castin.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2013

Energy, decay rate, and effective masses for a moving polaron in a Fermi sea: Explicit results in the weakly attractive limit

We study the properties of an impurity of mass $M$ moving through a spatially homogeneous three-dimensional fully polarized Fermi gas of particles of mass $m$. In the weakly attractive limit, where the effective coupling constant $g\to0^-$ and perturbation theory can be used, both for a broad and a narrow Feshbach resonance, we obtain an explicit analytical expression for the complex energy $ΔE(\KK)$ of the moving impurity up to order two included in $g$. This also gives access to its longitudinal and transverse effective masses $m_\parallel^*(\KK)$, $m_\perp^*(\KK)$, as functions of the impurity wave vector $\KK$. Depending on the modulus of $\KK$ and on the impurity-to-fermion mass ratio $M/m$ we identify four regions separated by singularities in derivatives with respect to $\KK$ of the second-order term of $ΔE(\KK)$, and we discuss the physical origin of these regions. Remarkably, the second-order term of $m_\parallel^*(\KK)$ presents points of non-differentiability, replaced by a logarithmic divergence for $M=m$, when $\KK$ is on the Fermi surface of the fermions. We also discuss the third-order contribution and relevance for cold atom experiments.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2013

Phase operators and blurring time of a pair-condensed Fermi gas

Due to atomic interactions and dispersion in the total atom number, the order parameter of a pair-condensed Fermi gas experiences a collapse in a time that we derive microscopically. As in the bosonic case, this blurring time depends on the derivative of the gas chemical potential with respect to the atom number and on the variance of that atom number. The result is obtained first using linearized time-dependent Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations, then in the Random Phase Approximation, and then it is generalized to beyond mean field. In this framework, we construct and compare two phase operators for the paired fermionic field: The first one, issued from our study of the dynamics, is the infinitesimal generator of adiabatic translations in the total number of pairs. The second one is the phase operator of the amplitude of the field of pairs on the condensate mode. We explain that these two operators differ due to the dependence of the condensate wave function on the atom number.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2013

Photonic band-gap in a realistic atomic diamond lattice: penetration depth, finite-size and vacancy effects

We study the effects of finite size and of vacancies on the photonic band gap recently predicted for an atomic diamond lattice. Close to a $J_g=0\to J_e=1$ atomic transition, and for atomic lattices containing up to $N\approx 3\times10^4$ atoms, we show how the density of states can be affected by both the shape of the system and the possible presence of a fraction of unoccupied lattice sites. We numerically predict and theoretically explain the presence of shape-induced border states and of vacancy-induced localized states appearing in the gap. We also investigate the penetration depth of the electromagnetic field which we compare to the case of an infinite system.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2013

Third virial coefficient of the unitary Bose gas

By unitary Bose gas we mean a system composed of spinless bosons with s-wave interaction of infinite scattering length and almost negligible (real or effective) range. Experiments are currently trying to realize it with cold atoms. From the analytic solution of the three-body problem in a harmonic potential, and using methods previously developed for fermions, we determine the third cumulant (or cluster integral) b_3 and the third virial coefficient a_3 of this gas, in the spatially homogeneous case, as a function of its temperature and the three-body parameter R_t characterizing the Efimov effect. A key point is that, converting series into integrals (by an inverse residue method), and using an unexpected small parameter (the three-boson mass angle nu=pi/6), one can push the full analytical estimate of b_3 and a_3 up to an error that is in practice negligible. ----- Nous entendons par gaz de Bose unitaire un systeme compose de bosons sans spin interagissant dans l'onde s par un potentiel de longueur de diffusion infinie et de portee (reelle ou effective) presque negligeable, systeme pour l'instant abstrait mais dont la tentative de realisation avec des atomes froids est en cours. A partir de la solution analytique connue du probleme a trois corps dans un piege harmonique, et de methodes precedemment developpees pour des fermions, nous determinons le troisieme cumulant b_3, puis le troisieme coefficient du viriel a_3 de ce gaz, dans le cas spatialement homogene, en fonction de sa temperature et du parametre a trois corps R_t caracterisant l'effet Efimov. Un point marquant est qu'en convertissant des series en des integrales (par une methode des residus inverse), puis en utilisant un petit parametre inattendu, l'angle de masse nu=pi/6 des trois bosons, on peut pousser l'estimation completement analytique de b_3 et de a_3 jusqu'a une erreur en pratique negligeable.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2012

Elastic scattering of a quantum matter-wave bright soliton on a barrier

We consider a one-dimensional matter-wave bright soliton, corresponding to the ground bound state of N particles of mass m having a binary attractive delta potential interaction on the open line. For a full N-body quantum treatment, we derive several results for the scattering of this quantum soliton on a short-range, bounded from below, external potential, restricting to the low energy, elastic regime where the centre-of-mass kinetic energy of the incoming soliton is lower than the internal energy gap of the soliton, that is the minimal energy required to extract particles from the soliton.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2012

An impurity in a Fermi sea on a narrow Feshbach resonance: A variational study of the polaronic and dimeronic branches

We study the problem of a single impurity of mass $M$ immersed in a Fermi sea of particles of mass $m$. The impurity and the fermions interact through a s-wave narrow Feshbach resonance, so that the Feshbach length $R_*$ naturally appears in the system. We use simple variational ansatz, limited to at most one pair of particle-hole excitations of the Fermi sea and we determine for the polaronic and dimeronic branches the phase diagram between absolute ground state, local minimum, thermodynamically unstable regions (with negative effective mass), and regions of complex energies (with negative imaginary part). We also determine the closed channel population which is experimentally accessible. Finally we identify a non-trivial weakly attractive limit where analytical results can be obtained, in particular for the crossing point between the polaronic and dimeronic energy branches.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2012

Spin Squeezing in Finite Temperature Bose-Einstein Condensates : Scaling with the system size

We perform a multimode treatment of spin squeezing induced by interactions in atomic condensates, and we show that, at finite temperature, the maximum spin squeezing has a finite limit when the atom number $N\to \infty$ at fixed density and interaction strength. To calculate the limit of the squeezing parameter for a spatially homogeneous system we perform a double expansion with two small parameters: 1/N in the thermodynamic limit and the non-condensed fraction $ /N$ in the Bogoliubov limit. To test our analytical results beyond the Bogoliubov approximation, and to perform numerical experiments, we use improved classical field simulations with a carefully chosen cut-off, such that the classical field model gives for the ideal Bose gas the correct non-condensed fraction in the Bose-condensed regime.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2012

Spatial and temporal coherence of a Bose-condensed gas

The central problem of this chapter is temporal coherence of a three-dimensional spatially homogeneous Bose-condensed gas, initially prepared at finite temperature and then evolving as an isolated interacting system. A first theoretical tool is a number-conserving Bogoliubov approach that allows to describe the system as a weakly interacting gas of quasi-particles. This approach naturally introduces the phase operator of the condensate: a central actor since loss of temporal coherence is governed by the spreading of the condensate phase-change. A second tool is the set of kinetic equations describing the Beliaev-Landau processes for the quasi-particles. We find that in general the variance of the condensate phase-change at long times $t$ is the sum of a ballistic term $\propto t^2$ and a diffusive term $\propto t$ with temperature and interaction dependent coefficients. In the thermodynamic limit, the diffusion coefficient scales as the inverse of the system volume. The coefficient of $t^2$ scales as the inverse volume squared times the variance of the energy of the system in the initial state and can also be obtained by a quantum ergodic theory (the so-called eigenstate thermalisation hypothesis).

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2011

Trimers in the resonant 2+1 fermionic problem on a narrow Feshbach resonance : Crossover from Efimovian to Hydrogenoid spectrum

We study the quantum three-body free space problem of two same-spin-state fermions of mass $m$ interacting with a different particle of mass $M$, on an infinitely narrow Feshbach resonance with infinite s-wave scattering length. This problem is made interesting by the existence of a tunable parameter, the mass ratio $α=m/M$. By a combination of analytical and numerical techniques, we obtain a detailed picture of the spectrum of three-body bound states, within {\sl each} sector of fixed total angular momentum $l$. For $α$ increasing from 0, we find that the trimer states first appear at the $l$-dependent Efimovian threshold $α_c^{(l)}$, where the Efimov exponent $s$ vanishes, and that the {\sl entire} trimer spectrum (starting from the ground trimer state) is geometric for $α$ tending to $α_c^{(l)}$ from above, with a global energy scale that has a finite and non-zero limit. For further increasing values of $α$, the least bound trimer states still form a geometric spectrum, with an energy ratio $\exp(2π/|s|)$ that becomes closer and closer to unity, but the most bound trimer states deviate more and more from that geometric spectrum and eventually form a hydrogenoid spectrum.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2011

Non-equilibrium and local detection of the normal fraction of a trapped two-dimensional Bose gas

We propose a method to measure the normal fraction of a two-dimensional Bose gas, a quantity that generally differs from the non-condensed fraction. The idea is based on applying a spatially oscillating artificial gauge field to the atoms. The response of the atoms to the gauge field can be read out either mechanically from the deposited energy into the cloud, or optically from the macroscopic optical properties of the atomic gas. The local nature of the proposed scheme allows one to reconstruct the spatial profile of the superfluid component; furthermore, the proposed method does not require having established thermal equilibrium in the gas in the presence of the gauge field. The theoretical description of the system is based on a generalization of the Dum-Olshanii theory of artificial gauge fields to the interacting many-body context. The efficiency of the proposed measurement scheme is assessed by means of classical field numerical simulations. An explicit atomic level scheme minimizing disturbing effects such as spontaneous emission and light-shifts is proposed for Rb 87 atoms.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2011

The Unitary Gas and its Symmetry Properties

The physics of atomic quantum gases is currently taking advantage of a powerful tool, the possibility to fully adjust the interaction strength between atoms using a magnetically controlled Feshbach resonance. For fermions with two internal states, formally two opposite spin states, this allows to prepare long lived strongly interacting three-dimensional gases and to study the BEC-BCS crossover. Of particular interest along the BEC-BCS crossover is the so-called unitary gas, where the atomic interaction potential between the opposite spin states has virtually an infinite scattering length and a zero range. This unitary gas is the main subject of the present chapter: It has fascinating symmetry properties, from a simple scaling invariance, to a more subtle dynamical symmetry in an isotropic harmonic trap, which is linked to a separability of the N-body problem in hyperspherical coordinates. Other analytical results, valid over the whole BEC-BCS crossover, are presented, establishing a connection between three recently measured quantities, the tail of the momentum distribution, the short range part of the pair distribution function and the mean number of closed channel molecules.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2011

Spin squeezing in Bose-Einstein condensates: Limits imposed by decoherence and non-zero temperature

We consider dynamically generated spin squeezing in interacting bimodal condensates. We show that particle losses and non-zero temperature effects in a multimode theory completely change the scaling of the best squeezing for large atom numbers. We present the new scalings and we give approximate analytical expressions for the squeezing in the thermodynamic limit. Besides reviewing our recent theoretical results, we give here a simple physical picture of how decoherence acts to limit the squeezing. We show in particular that under certain conditions the decoherence due to losses and non-zero temperatureacts as a simple dephasing.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2011

Single-Particle Momentum Distribution of an Efimov trimer

Experimental progress in the study of strongly interacting ultracold atoms has recently allowed the observation of Efimov trimers. We study theoretically a non-conventional observable for these trimer states, that may be accessed experimentally, the momentum distribution n(k) of the constitutive bosonic particles. The large momentum part of the distribution is particularly intriguing: In addition to the expected 1/k^4 tail associated to contact interactions, it exhibits a subleading tail 1/k^5 which is a hall-mark of Efimov physics and leads to a breakdown of a previously proposed expression of the energy as a functional of the momentum distribution.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2010

Quantitative study of two- and three-dimensional strong localization of matter waves by atomic scatterers

We study the strong localization of atomic matter waves in a disordered potential created by atoms pinned at the nodes of a lattice, for both three-dimensional (3D) and two-dimensional (2D) systems. The localization length of the matter wave, the density of localized states, and the occurrence of energy mobility edges (for the 3D system), are numerically investigated as a function of the effective scattering length between the atomic matter wave and the pinned atoms. Both positive and negative matter wave energies are explored. Interesting features of the density of states are discovered at negative energies, where maxima in the density of bound states for the system can be interpreted in terms of bound states of a matter wave atom with a few pinned atomic scatterers. In 3D we found evidence of up to three mobility edges, one at positive energies, and two at negative energies, the latter corresponding to transitions between extended and localized bound states. In 2D, no mobility edge is found, and a rapid exponential-like increase of the localization length is observed at high energy.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2010

Four-body Efimov effect

We study three same spin state fermions of mass M interacting with a distinguishable particle of mass m in the unitary limit where the interaction has a zero range and an infinite s-wave scattering length. We predict an interval of mass ratio 13.384 < M/m < 13.607 where there exists a purely four-body Efimov effect, leading to the occurrence of weakly bound tetramers without Efimov trimers.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2010

Particle number fluctuations in a cloven trapped Bose gas at finite temperature

We study fluctuations in the atom number difference between two halves of a harmonically trapped Bose gas in three dimensions. We solve the problem analytically for non interacting atoms. In the interacting case we find an analytical solution in the Thomas-Fermi and high temperature limit in good agreement with classical field simulations. In the large system size limit, fluctuations in the number difference are maximal for a temperature $T\simeq 0.7 T_c$ where $T_c$ is the critical temperature, independently of the trap anisotropy. The occurrence of this maximum is due to an interference effect between the condensate and the non-condensed field.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2010

Heating rates for an atom in a far-detuned optical lattice

We calculate single atom heating rates in a far detuned optical lattice, in connection with recent experiments. We first derive a master equation, including a realistic atomic internal structure and a quantum treatment of the atomic motion in the lattice. The experimental feature that optical lattices are obtained by superimposing laser standing waves of different frequencies is also included, which leads to a micromotional correction to the light shift that we evaluate. We then calculate, and compare to experimental results, two heating rates, the "total" heating rate (corresponding to the increase of the total mechanical energy of the atom in the lattice), and the ground bande heating rate (corresponding to the increase of energy within the ground energy band of the lattice).

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2009

Coherence time of a Bose-Einstein condensate

Temporal coherence is a fundamental property of macroscopic quantum systems, such as lasers in optics and Bose-Einstein condensates in atomic gases and it is a crucial issue for interferometry applications with light or matter waves. Whereas the laser is an "open" quantum system, ultracold atomic gases are weakly coupled to the environment and may be considered as isolated. The coherence time of a condensate is then intrinsic to the system and its derivation is out of the frame of laser theory. Using quantum kinetic theory, we predict that the interaction with non-condensed modes gradually smears out the condensate phase, with a variance growing as A t^2+B t+C at long times t, and we give a quantitative prediction for A, B and C. Whereas the coefficient A vanishes for vanishing energy fluctuations in the initial state, the coefficients B and C are remarkably insensitive to these fluctuations. The coefficient B describes a diffusive motion of the condensate phase that sets the ultimate limit to the condensate coherence time. We briefly discuss the possibility to observe the predicted phase spreading, also including the effect of particle losses.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗