Efficient matter-wave lensing of ultracold atomic mixtures

Abstract

Mixtures of ultracold quantum gases are at the heart of high-precision quantum tests of the weak equivalence principle, where extremely low expansion rates have to be reached with matter-wave lensing techniques. We propose to simplify this challenging atom-source preparation by employing magic laser wavelengths for the optical lensing potentials, which guarantee that all atomic species follow identical trajectories and experience common expansion dynamics. In this way, the relative shape of the mixture is conserved during the entire evolution while cutting in half the number of required lensing pulses compared to standard approaches.

Controlled expansion of shell-shaped Bose–Einstein condensates

“…Experimentally, two schemes have currently shown to be capable of creating shells: (i) radio-frequency (rf) dressing [16][17][18][19][20] in combination with a microgravity environment [1,21], and (ii) an optically confined mixture of two Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) employing a magic laser wavelength for trapping the mixture [2,22,23]. The latter scheme could also be realized in microgravity [22] and typically relies on a Feshbach resonance [24,25] to tune the interspecies interaction that builds up the shell.…”