2023-12-05 12:15:12
Ultracold atom gases are a well-established platform for quantum information processing and simulation. Studies of these systems have experienced spectacular progress since the creation of the first Bose-Einstein condensate at a temperature close to absolute zero, whose importance was recognized with the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2001.
Now, a study in which researchers from the Complex Systems Group (GSC) of the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM) in Spain have participated, has demonstrated the existence of a type of resonances in a gas confined in a 3D optical trap that opens the door to new control mechanisms in these systems.
The research team, led by Deborah Capecchi of the Institute for Experimental Physics at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, and also including scientists from the University of Stuttgart, Humboldt University of Berlin and the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics, in Germany, all these entities, carried out two experiments in which it was proven that the intensity of the laser with which the optical trap that confines the gas in 3D is created can be used to manipulate it through the inelastic resonances induced by the confinement. .
The results of the two experiments carried out (in which a gas made up of tens of thousands of atoms has been studied) have also been corroborated with two different theoretical models that use only two particles.
Until now, inelastic resonances have only been observed in traps that are elongated in one direction or practically flat. Its existence, also, in 3D systems demonstrates its ubiquitous nature.
Atoms confined in an optical trap. (Image: Fabio Revuelta)
The inelastic resonances induced by confinement have their origin in the anharmonic terms in the trap itself that confines the gas. By changing the intensity of the laser with which the trap is created, the previous terms are modified, as well as the energy of the gas and its collision properties.
According to statements by Fabio Revuelta, UPM researcher: “This fact offers an alternative mechanism to manipulate gas without the need for external magnetic fields as is the case with Feshbach resonances. In addition, it opens the door to the artificial synthesis of ultracold molecules in 3D.”
The study is titled “Observation of confinement-induced resonances in a 3D lattice. And it has been published in the academic journal Physical Review Letters. (Source: UPM)
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