Hannover 2016 – scientific programme
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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 11: Poster: Quantum Optics and Photonics I
Q 11.7: Poster
Monday, February 29, 2016, 16:30–19:00, Empore Lichthof
Diffusion of Single Atoms in a Bath — •Daniel Adam1, Farina Kindermann1, Andreas Dechant2, Michael Hohmann1, Tobias Lausch1, Daniel Mayer1, Felix Schmidt1, Eric Lutz2, and Artur Widera1 — 1TU Kaiserslautern, Department of Physics, Kaiserslautern, Germany — 2Friedrich-Alexander-Universität, Department of Theoretical Physics, Erlangen, Germany
Diffusion processes are a central phenomenon in almost all natural sciences ranging from cell transport in biology over traffic modelling to financial market theory. The typical measured quantity to evaluate the random walk process is the mean squared displacement (MSD). If the MSD increases linearly with the evolution time of the system one assumes normal diffusion and hence implies three well known properties: First the underlying single step distribution is Gaussian, second the system is ergodic, and third the auto correlation function is stationary. Here we engineer a system of a single atom in a periodic potential, which is coupled to a photon bath. The MSD shows normal diffusion for almost all times, but a closer look at the microscopic properties reveals an exponential single step distribution and ergodicity is not reached within timescales large compared to the characteristic timescale of the system. In addition the autocorrelation function shows ageing typically known from glassy materials. A continuous time random walk (CTRW) model with exponential step distribution perfectly fits to our data. Our results may shed light on the microscopic behavior of related biological systems.