Jérôme Estève

Role of wire imperfections in micromagnetic traps for atoms

We present a quantitative study of roughness in the magnitude of the magnetic field produced by a current carrying microwire, i.e., in the trapping potential for paramagnetic atoms. We show that this potential roughness arises from deviations in the wire current flow due to geometric fluctuations of the edges of the wire: a measurement of the potential using cold trapped atoms agrees with the potential computed from the measurement of the wire edge roughness by a scanning electron microscope.

Cavity-Based Single Atom Preparation and High-Fidelity Hyperfine State Readout

We prepare and detect the hyperfine state of a single 87Rb atom coupled to a fiber-based high-finesse cavity on an atom chip. The atom is extracted from a Bose-Einstein condensate and trapped at the maximum of the cavity field, resulting in a reproducibly strong atom-cavity coupling. We use the cavity reflection and transmission signal to infer the atomic hyperfine state with a fidelity exceeding 99.92% in a readout time of 100  μs. The atom is still trapped after detection.

Measurement of the internal state of a single atom without energy exchange

A measurement necessarily changes the quantum state being measured, a phenomenon known as back-action. Real measurements, however, almost always cause a much stronger back-action than is required by the laws of quantum mechanics. Quantum non-demolition measurements have been devised that keep the additional back-action entirely within observables other than the one being measured. However, this back-action on other observables often imposes its own constraints. In particular, free-space optical detection methods for single atoms and ions (such as the shelving technique, a sensitive and well-developed method) inevitably require spontaneous scattering, even in the dispersive regime. This causes irreversible energy exchange (heating), which is a limitation in atom-based quantum information processing, where it obviates straightforward reuse of the qubit. No such energy exchange is required by quantum mechanics. Here we experimentally demonstrate optical detection of an atomic qubit with significantly less than one spontaneous scattering event. We measure the transmission and reflection of an optical cavity containing the atom. In addition to the qubit detection itself, we quantitatively measure how much spontaneous scattering has occurred. This allows us to relate the information gained to the amount of spontaneous emission, and we obtain a detection error below 10 per cent while scattering less than 0.2 photons on average. Furthermore, we perform a quantum Zeno-type experiment to quantify the measurement back-action, and find that every incident photon leads to an almost complete state collapse. Together, these results constitute a full experimental characterization of a quantum measurement in the ‘energy exchange-free’ regime below a single spontaneous emission event. Besides its fundamental interest, this approach could significantly simplify proposed neutral-atom quantum computation schemes, and may enable sensitive detection of molecules and atoms lacking closed transitions.

Entangled States of More Than 40 Atoms in an Optical Fiber Cavity

All Together Now In quantum entanglement, correlations between particles mean that the measurement of one determines the outcome of the other(s). Generally, when trying to exploit quantum entanglement, the larger the number of entangled particles, the better. However, the size of entangled systems has been limited. Haas et al. (p. 180, published online 27 March; see the Perspective by Widera) prepared a small ensemble of ultracold atoms into a collective entangled state. Starting from one internal quantum state, the system of cold atoms was excited with a weak microwave pulse leading to a small excitation probability. Because it is not known which atom is promoted into the excited state, the detection of one quantum of excitation projects the system into an entangled quantum state, called a W-state. A fast repeat-until-success scheme produced such W-states quasi-deterministically. Using such a technique was able to yield entangled states of more than 40 particles. The relatively large ensemble-entangled states could potentially in the future find use in quantum sensing or enhanced quantum metrology applications. A small ensemble of ultracold atoms in a chip trap has been used to realize a collective entangled state. [Also see Perspective by Widera] Multiparticle entanglement enables quantum simulations, quantum computing, and quantum-enhanced metrology. Yet, there are few methods to produce and measure such entanglement while maintaining single-qubit resolution as the number of qubits is scaled up. Using atom chips and fiber-optical cavities, we have developed a method based on nondestructive collective measurement and conditional evolution to create symmetric entangled states and perform their tomography. We demonstrate creation and analysis of entangled states with mean atom numbers up to 41 and experimentally prove multiparticle entanglement. Our method is independent of atom number and should allow generalization to other entangled states and other physical implementations, including circuit quantum electrodynamics.

Enhanced and Reduced Atom Number Fluctuations in a BEC Splitter

We measure atom number statistics after splitting a gas of ultracold 87Rb atoms in a purely magnetic double-well potential created on an atom chip. Well below the critical temperature for Bose-Einstein condensation Tc, we observe reduced fluctuations down to -4.9 dB below the atom shot noise level. Fluctuations rise to more than +3.8 dB close to Tc, before reaching the shot noise level for higher temperatures. We use two-mode and classical field simulations to model these results. This allows us to confirm that the supershot noise fluctuations directly originate from quantum statistics.

Cavity quantum electrodynamics with charge-controlled quantum dots coupled to a fiber Fabry–Perot cavity

We demonstrate non-perturbative coupling between a single self-assembled InGaAs quantum dot and an external fiber-mirror-based microcavity. Our results extend the previous realizations of tunable microcavities while ensuring spatial and spectral overlap between the cavity mode and the emitter by simultaneously allowing for deterministic charge control of the quantum dots. Using resonant spectroscopy, we show that the coupled quantum dot cavity system is at the onset of strong coupling, with a cooperativity parameter of C ≈ 2.0 ± 1.3. Our results constitute a milestone in the progress toward the realization of a high-efficiency solid-state spin–photon interface.

Realizing a stable magnetic double-well potential on an atom chip

Abstract.We discuss design considerations and the realization of a magnetic double-well potential on an atom chip using current-carrying wires. Stability requirements for the trapping potential lead to a typical size of order microns for such a device. We also present experiments using the device to manipulate cold, trapped atoms.

Deterministic generation of multiparticle entanglement by quantum Zeno dynamics.

Entangling atoms by persistent poking In quantum mechanics, repeated measurements targeting a particular unoccupied state of the system can keep that state from being occupied. Barontini et al. used this so-called quantum Zeno effect to restrict the dynamics of an ensemble of 36 87Rb atoms acting as qubits and residing in an optical cavity. The measurement of the cavity transmission blocked off the collective state in which all qubits were in their ground state. The ensuing dynamics resulted in the entanglement of the atoms, creating a potential resource for quantum information processing. Science, this issue p. 1317 The dynamics of an ensemble of 36 atoms of rubidium-87 in a cavity is restricted by measuring the cavity’s transmission. Multiparticle entangled quantum states, a key resource in quantum-enhanced metrology and computing, are usually generated by coherent operations exclusively. However, unusual forms of quantum dynamics can be obtained when environment coupling is used as part of the state generation. In this work, we used quantum Zeno dynamics (QZD), based on nondestructive measurement with an optical microcavity, to deterministically generate different multiparticle entangled states in an ensemble of 36 qubit atoms in less than 5 microseconds. We characterized the resulting states by performing quantum tomography, yielding a time-resolved account of the entanglement generation. In addition, we studied the dependence of quantum states on measurement strength and quantified the depth of entanglement. Our results show that QZD is a versatile tool for fast and deterministic entanglement generation in quantum engineering applications.

Specular reflection of matter waves from a rough mirror.

We present a high resolution study of the specularity of the atomic reflection from an evanescent wave mirror using velocity selective Raman transitions. We observed a double structure in the velocity distribution after reflection: a peak consistent with specular reflection and a diffuse reflection pedestal whose contribution decreases rapidly with increasing detuning. The diffuse reflection is due to two distinct effects: spontaneous emission in the evanescent wave and roughness in the evanescent wave potential whose amplitude is smaller than the de Broglie wavelength of the reflected atoms.

Experimental evidence for the breakdown of a Hartree-Fock approach in a weakly interacting Bose gas

We investigate the physics underlying the presence of a quasicondensate in a nearly one dimensional, weakly interacting trapped atomic Bose gas. We show that a Hartree-Fock (mean-field) approach fails to predict the existence of the quasicondensate in the center of the cloud: the quasicondensate is generated by interaction-induced correlations between atoms and not by a saturation of the excited states. Numerical calculations based on Bogoliubov theory give an estimate of the crossover density in agreement with experimental results.