Coherent optical nanotweezers for ultracold atoms

P. Bienias, S. Subhankar, Y. Wang, T-C. Tsui, F. Jendrzejewski, T. Tiecke, G. Juzeliūnas, L. Jiang, S. L. Rolston, J. V. Porto, and A. V. Gorshkov

Phys. Rev. A 102, 013306 – Published 7 July 2020

Abstract

There has been a recent surge of interest and progress in creating subwavelength free-space optical potentials for ultracold atoms. A key open question is whether geometric potentials, which are repulsive and ubiquitous in the creation of subwavelength free-space potentials, forbid the creation of narrow traps with long lifetimes. Here, we show that it is possible to create such traps. We propose two schemes for realizing subwavelength traps and demonstrate their superiority over existing proposals. We analyze the lifetime of atoms in such traps and show that long-lived bound states are possible. This work allows for subwavelength control and manipulation of ultracold matter, with applications in quantum chemistry and quantum simulation.

Received 30 December 2019
Accepted 29 May 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.102.013306

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Atom optics Cold gases in optical lattices Quantum information with atoms & light

Ultracold gases

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied PhysicsAtomic, Molecular & Optical

Authors & Affiliations

P. Bienias^1,2,*, S. Subhankar¹, Y. Wang¹, T-C. Tsui¹, F. Jendrzejewski³, T. Tiecke^4,†, G. Juzeliūnas⁵, L. Jiang^6,7,8, S. L. Rolston¹, J. V. Porto¹, and A. V. Gorshkov^1,2

¹Joint Quantum Institute, NIST/University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA
²Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science, NIST/University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA
³Kirchhoff Institut für Physik, Universität Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 227, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
⁴Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
⁵Institute of Theoretical Physics and Astronomy, Vilnius University, Saulėtekio Avenue 3, LT-10257 Vilnius, Lithuania
⁶Department of Applied Physics, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA
⁷Yale Quantum Institute, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, USA
⁸Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA

^*bienias@umd.edu
^†Present address: Facebook, Inc., 1 Hacker Way, Menlo Park, CA, 94025.

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Vol. 102, Iss. 1 — July 2020

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