Hannover 2010 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 21: Poster I

Q 21.10: Poster

Dienstag, 9. März 2010, 16:00–19:00, Lichthof

Parametric amplification of vacuum fluctuations in spinor Bose-Einstein condensates — Carsten Klempt¹, Oliver Topic¹, Garu Gebreyesus², Manuel Scherer¹, •Bernd Lücke¹, Frank Deuretzbacher², Phillip Hyllus³, Wolfgang Ertmer¹, Luis Santos², and Jan Arlt¹ — ¹Institut für Quantenoptik, Leibniz Universität Hannover — ²Institut für theoretische Physik, Leibniz Universität Hannover — ³INFM BEC, Trento

The nature of the vacuum state and its fluctuations constitutes one of the most fascinating aspects of modern physics. Particularly in optics parametric amplification of such fluctuations is an important tool for generating non-classical states of light. These concepts can be transfered to matter-wave optics using spinor Bose-Einstein condensates.

To demonstrate this we use a sample initially prepared in the m_F = 0 state, where spin-changing collisions triggered by quantum fluctuations may lead to the creation of correlated pairs in m_F = ± 1. We show that the pair creation efficiency is strongly influenced by the interplay between the quadratic Zeeman effect and the confinement in the external trapping potential. This confinement has previously been neglected in homogeneous approximations and leads to a multi-resonant dependence on the magnetic field.

On these resonances we conclusively demonstrate that the system can act as a parametric amplifier for vacuum fluctuations, providing a new microscope to investigate the vacuum state and a promising method for entanglement and squeezing production in matter waves.