We have created a long-lived (≈40 s) persistent current in a toroidal Bose-Einstein condensate held in an all-optical trap. A repulsive optical barrier across one side of the torus creates a tunable weak link in the condensate circuit, which can affect the current around the loop. Superflow stops abruptly at a barrier strength such that the local flow velocity at the barrier exceeds a critical velocity. The measured critical velocity is consistent with dissipation due to the creation of vortex-antivortex pairs. This system is the first realization of an elementary closed-loop atom circuit.

A laser beam with phase singularities is an interesting object to study in optics and may have important applications in guiding atoms and molecules. We explore the characteristics of a singularity in a nondiffracting Bessel beam experimentally by use of a programmable spatial light modulator with 64-level phase holograms. The diffraction efficiency with 64-level phase holograms is greatly improved in comparison with that obtained with a binary grating. The experiments show that the size and deflection angle of the beam can be controlled in real time. The observations are in agreement with scalar diffraction theory.

We have experimentally measured transport of superfluid, bosonic atoms in a mesoscopic system: a small channel connecting two large reservoirs. Starting far from equilibrium (superfluid in a single reservoir), we observe first resistive flow transitioning at a critical current into superflow, characterized by oscillations. We reproduce this full evolution with a simple electronic circuit model. We compare our fitted conductance to two different microscopic phenomenological models. We also show that the oscillations are consistent with LC oscillations as estimated by the kinetic inductance and effective capacitance in our system. Our experiment provides an attractive platform to begin to probe the mesoscopic transport properties of a dilute, superfluid, Bose gas.

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A 1-mm-diameter all-light atom guide capable of transporting ultracold atoms tens of centimeters with high efficiency is described. We made the atom tunnel, a dark hollow beam that is blue detuned from resonance, by passing a few tens of milliwatts of power from a TEM 00 diode laser beam through an optical sequence composed of three axicons and a simple lens. We demonstrate transport of 10 8 Cs atoms approximately 20 cm with minimal heating. We show that it is possible for one to control the direction and speed of the atoms in the tunnel by varying the detuning of the tunnel beam.

Using a thermal sample of laser-cooled rubidium atoms, we have constructed a neutral-atom circuit analogous to an electronic capacitor discharged through a resistor. The atoms are confined using what we call a free-space atom chip, an optical dipole trap created using a generalized phase-contrast imaging technique. We have also calculated theoretical values for the capacitance and resistance, which agree with our experiments, as well as theoretical value for an atomic analog of electrical inductance. We show that atomic capacitance is analogous to the quantum capacitance, the atomic resistance is analogous to the ballistic, or Sharvin resistance, and the atomic inductance is analogous to kinetic inductance.

Polarization spectroscopy makes use of the polarization dependence of the nonlinear interaction between two laser beams in a gaseous medium.The laser-induced optical anisotropy is calculated using a rate equation approach, and the effect of this anisotropy on a polarized probe beam is derived.The method is useful for Doppler -free spectroscopy, for similification of molecular spectra, and for relaxation studies.A comparison with other Doppler -free saturation spectroscopy methods shows an advantage in signal -to -noise for polarization spectroscopy.Recent high resolution experiments with hydrogen, molecular sodium, and nitrogen dioxide are presented.

We present two spatial-shaping approaches - phase and amplitude - for creating two-dimensional optical dipole potentials for ultracold neutral atoms. When combined with an attractive or repulsive Gaussian sheet formed by an astigmatically focused beam, atoms are trapped in three dimensions resulting in planar confinement with an arbitrary network of potentials - a free-space atom chip. The first approach utilizes an adaptation of the generalized phase-contrast technique to convert a phase structure embedded in a beam after traversing a phase mask, to an identical intensity profile in the image plane. Phase masks, and a requisite phase-contrast filter, can be chemically etched into optical material (e.g., fused silica) or implemented with spatial light modulators; etching provides the highest quality while spatial light modulators enable prototyping and realtime structure modification. This approach was demonstrated on an ensemble of thermal atoms. Amplitude shaping is possible when the potential structure is made as an opaque mask in the path of a dipole trap beam, followed by imaging the shadow onto the plane of the atoms. While much more lossy, this very simple and inexpensive approach can produce dipole potentials suitable for containing degenerate gases. High-quality amplitude masks can be produced with standard photolithography techniques. Amplitude shaping was demonstrated on a Bose-Einstein condensate.