Direct Observation of a Sub-Poissonian Number Distribution of Atoms in an Optical Lattice

Itah, Amir; Veksler, Hagar; Lahav, Oren; Blumkin, A.; Moreno, C. A. Moscoso; Gordon, Carmit; Steinhauer, Jeff

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.104.113001

Cited by 57 publications

(59 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Until now, sub-Poissonian number fluctuations of ultracold atoms have been observed only for small clouds of bosons with typically a few hundred atoms [13][14][15][16] and directly [17,18] or indirectly [19] for the bosonic Mott in- Ballistic expansion conserves phase space density and shears the initially occupied spherical area into an ellipse. In the center of the cloud, the local Fermi momentum and the sharpness of the Fermi distribution are scaled by the same factor, keeping the ratio of local temperature to Fermi energy constant.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…These include the band insulator, Mott insulator, and also the antiferromagnet for which spin fluctuations, i.e. fluctuations of the difference in density between the two spin states, are suppressed.Until now, sub-Poissonian number fluctuations of ultracold atoms have been observed only for small clouds of bosons with typically a few hundred atoms [13][14][15][16] and directly [17,18] or indirectly [19] for the bosonic Mott in- …”

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Suppression of Density Fluctuations in a Quantum Degenerate Fermi Gas

et al. 2010

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We study density profiles of an ideal Fermi gas and observe Pauli suppression of density fluctuations (atom shot noise) for cold clouds deep in the quantum degenerate regime. Strong suppression is observed for probe volumes containing more than 10,000 atoms. Measuring the level of suppression provides sensitive thermometry at low temperatures. After this method of sensitive noise measurements has been validated with an ideal Fermi gas, it can now be applied to characterize phase transitions in strongly correlated many-body systems.PACS numbers: 03.75. Ss, 05.30.Fk, 67.85.Lm Systems of fermions obey the Pauli exclusion principle. Processes that would require two fermions to occupy the same quantum state are suppressed. In recent years, several classic experiments have directly observed manifestations of Pauli suppression in Fermi gases. Antibunching and the suppression of noise correlations are a direct consequence of the forbidden double occupancy of a quantum state. Such experiments were carried out for electrons [1][2][3], neutral atoms [4,5], and neutrons [6]. In principle, such experiments can be done with fermions at any temperature, but in practice low temperatures increase the signal. A second class of (two-body) Pauli suppression effects, the suppression of collisions, requires a temperature low enough such that the de Broglie wavelength of the fermions becomes larger than the range of the interatomic potential and p-wave collisions freeze out. Experiments observed the suppression of elastic collisions [7,8] and of clock shifts in radio frequency spectroscopy [9,10].Here we report on the observation of Pauli suppression of density fluctuations, a many-body phenomenon which occurs only at even lower temperatures in the quantum degenerate regime, where the Fermi gas is cooled below the Fermi temperature and the low lying quantum states are occupied with probabilities close to one. In contrast, an ideal Bose gas close to quantum degeneracy shows enhanced density fluctuations [11].The development of a technique to sensitively measure density fluctuations was motivated by the connection between density fluctuations and compressibility through the fluctuation dissipation theorem. In this paper, we validate our technique for determining the compressibility by applying it to the ideal Fermi gas. In future work, it could be extended to interesting many-body phases in optical lattices which are distinguished by their incompressibility [12]. These include the band insulator, Mott insulator, and also the antiferromagnet for which spin fluctuations, i.e. fluctuations of the difference in density between the two spin states, are suppressed.Until now, sub-Poissonian number fluctuations of ultracold atoms have been observed only for small clouds of bosons with typically a few hundred atoms [13][14][15][16] and directly [17,18] or indirectly [19] for the bosonic Mott in-

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Suppression of Density Fluctuations in a Quantum Degenerate Fermi Gas

et al. 2010

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“…An array of optical microtraps with each site storing a single atom [7][8][9][10] is a promising working arrangement to fulfill the DiVicenzo criteria. The probability of having an array of N sites all filled with an atom simultaneously scales with the single atom preparation efficiency to the power of N. Therefore high efficiency loading of single neutral atoms is an important step to realize a scalable quantum information processing device [7,[11][12][13]. Additionally, trapped single cold atoms in separate traps has minimal perturbation due to interaction with the environment, which is utilized in quantum metrology in such apparatus as a 3D optical lattice clock [14,15].…”

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confidence: 99%

“…A few different approaches have been developed to achieve efficient preparation of single neutral atoms in FORTs. These include the redistribution of individual atoms into arrays of microtraps by atom-sorting [24], isolation of single atoms in microtraps by using the superfluid to Mott-insulator transition from a Bose-Einstein condensate [11,25,26] or using Pauli's exclusion principle [23], and using the Rydberg blockade mechanism [27], Penning ionization [28], or repulsive light-assisted collisions [29][30][31] to ensure that the trap is not occupied by more than one atom.…”

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confidence: 99%

Single Atoms Preparation Using Light-Assisted Collisions

2016

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Abstract:The detailed control achieved over single optically trapped neutral atoms makes them candidates for applications in quantum metrology and quantum information processing. The last few decades have seen different methods developed to optimize the preparation efficiency of single atoms in optical traps. Here we review the near-deterministic preparation of single atoms based on light-assisted collisions and describe how this method can be implemented in different trap regimes. The simplicity and versatility of the method makes it feasible to be employed in future quantum technologies such as a quantum logic device.

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“…Notably, time-of-flight measurements directly image the Fermi surface of the atoms in the optical lattice, as initial momentum maps into final position [19,20]. As opposed to measuring the momentum distribution of the lattice atoms, direct in situ imaging makes it possible to reconstruct the atom number distribution in the optical lattice with single-atom and single-site resolution, as realized in, e.g., [21,[23][24][25][26][27]. Although there is no doubt that the aforementioned methods offer extremely valuable insights, they suffer from an obvious drawback: the quantum state of the atoms in the optical lattice is destroyed or collapsed (loss of phase coherence) by the measurement.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dicke superradiance as nondestructive probe for the state of atoms in optical lattices

Brinke

Schützhold

2016

Eur. Phys. J. D

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Abstract. We present a proposal for a probing scheme utilizing Dicke superradiance to obtain information about ultracold atoms in optical lattices. A probe photon is absorbed collectively by an ensemble of lattice atoms generating a Dicke state. The lattice dynamics (e.g., tunneling) affects the coherence properties of that Dicke state and thus alters the superradiant emission characteristics -which in turn provides insight into the lattice (dynamics). Comparing the Bose-Hubbard and the Fermi-Hubbard model, we find similar superradiance in the strongly interacting Mott insulator regime, but crucial differences in the weakly interacting (superfluid or metallic) phase. Furthermore, we study the possibility to detect whether a quantum phase transition between the two regimes can be considered adiabatic or a quantum quench.

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Direct Observation of a Sub-Poissonian Number Distribution of Atoms in an Optical Lattice

Cited by 57 publications

References 42 publications

Suppression of Density Fluctuations in a Quantum Degenerate Fermi Gas

Suppression of Density Fluctuations in a Quantum Degenerate Fermi Gas

Single Atoms Preparation Using Light-Assisted Collisions

Dicke superradiance as nondestructive probe for the state of atoms in optical lattices

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