Hannover 2010 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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A: Fachverband Atomphysik

A 7: Ultra-Cold Atoms: Manipulation and Detection (with Q)

A 7.6: Vortrag

Dienstag, 9. März 2010, 15:15–15:30, A 320

Towards phase damping of two independent condensates via an optical high finesse cavity — •Simone Bux, Christine Gnahm, Gordon Krenz, Claus Zimmermann, and Philippe A.W. Courteille — Physikalisches Institut Tübingen, Auf der Morgenstelle 14, 72076 Tübingen

Optical ring cavities have been proposed for novel optical cooling schemes for atoms and molecules known as "cavity-cooling" [1,2]. However, they also play an important role in the quest for controllable damping mechanisms working even for superfluids, whose prominent feature is the absence of friction. Our goal is to experimentally prove the viability of a cavity-based damping scheme predicted to lead to the unification of independently grown Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) [3]. For this purpose, we create in our experiment two BECs of Rb87 in two different hyperfine states. The states are coherently driven on a microwave-radiofrequency two-photon transition and additionally coupled by a Raman transition, which is stimulated by a high-finesse ring cavity. This scheme induces an irreversible cycling in the atomic excitation and, due to the cavity-mediated coupling to the external degrees of freedom, a synchronization of the condensates' de Broglie phases. We will present the model and the state of the art of our experiment.

[1] V. Vuletic and S. Chu, Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 3787 (2000)

[2] P. Horak, S. M. Barnett, and H. Ritsch, Phys. Rev. A 61, 033609 (2000)

[3] D. Jaksch, S. A. Gardiner, K. Schulze, J. I. Cirac, and P. Zoller, Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 4733 (2001)