Russell Hart

Quantum Gas of Deeply Bound Ground State Molecules

Molecular cooling techniques face the hurdle of dissipating translational as well as internal energy in the presence of a rich electronic, vibrational, and rotational energy spectrum. In our experiment, we create a translationally ultracold, dense quantum gas of molecules bound by more than 1000 wave numbers in the electronic ground state. Specifically, we stimulate with 80% efficiency, a two-photon transfer of molecules associated on a Feshbach resonance from a Bose-Einstein condensate of cesium atoms. In the process, the initial loose, long-range electrostatic bond of the Feshbach molecule is coherently transformed into a tight chemical bond. We demonstrate coherence of the transfer in a Ramsey-type experiment and show that the molecular sample is not heated during the transfer. Our results show that the preparation of a quantum gas of molecules in specific rovibrational states is possible and that the creation of a Bose-Einstein condensate of molecules in their rovibronic ground state is within reach.

An ultracold high-density sample of rovibronic ground-state molecules in an optical lattice

Control over all internal and external degrees of freedom of molecules at the level of single quantum states will enable a series of fundamental studies in physics and chemistry(1,2). In particular, samples of ground-state molecules at ultralow temperatures and high number densities will facilitate new quantum-gas studies(3) and future applications in quantum information science(4). However, high phase-space densities for molecular samples are not readily attainable because efficient cooling techniques such as laser cooling are lacking. Here we produce an ultracold and dense sample of molecules in a single hyperfine level of the rovibronic ground state with each molecule individually trapped in the motional ground state of an optical lattice well. Starting from a zero-temperature atomic Mott-insulator state(5) with optimized double-site occupancy(6), weakly bound dimer molecules are efficiently associated on a Feshbach resonance(7) and subsequently transferred to the rovibronic ground state by a stimulated four-photon process with >50% efficiency. The molecules are trapped in the lattice and have a lifetime of 8 s. Our results present a crucial step towards Bose-Einstein condensation of ground-state molecules and, when suitably generalized to polar heteronuclear molecules, the realization of dipolar quantum-gas phases in optical lattices(8-10).

Realization of an Excited, Strongly Correlated Quantum Gas Phase

Stability Through Confinement With the ability to vary experimental parameters—including particle density, geometry, interaction strength, and sign—cold atoms trapped in optical lattices are ideal test systems to probe many-body quantum physics. However, due to dissipation processes most of the scenarios studied to date have necessarily looked at ground state phases. Haller et al. (p. 1224) describe a technique in which confinement of the atoms to low dimensions, using a confinement-induced resonance, can stabilize excited states with tunable interactions. The ability to create these metastable states will allow a much wider range of quantum systems to be explored. Confinement of a cloud of ultracold atoms along one dimension creates tunable metastable excited states. Ultracold atomic physics offers myriad possibilities to study strongly correlated many-body systems in lower dimensions. Typically, only ground-state phases are accessible. Using a tunable quantum gas of bosonic cesium atoms, we realized and controlled in one-dimensional geometry a highly excited quantum phase that is stabilized in the presence of attractive interactions by maintaining and strengthening quantum correlations across a confinement-induced resonance. We diagnosed the crossover from repulsive to attractive interactions in terms of the stiffness and energy of the system. Our results open up the experimental study of metastable, excited, many-body phases with strong correlations and their dynamical properties.

Observation of antiferromagnetic correlations in the Hubbard model with ultracold atoms

Ultracold atoms in optical lattices have great potential to contribute to a better understanding of some of the most important issues in many-body physics, such as high-temperature superconductivity. The Hubbard model—a simplified representation of fermions moving on a periodic lattice—is thought to describe the essential details of copper oxide superconductivity. This model describes many of the features shared by the copper oxides, including an interaction-driven Mott insulating state and an antiferromagnetic (AFM) state. Optical lattices filled with a two-spin-component Fermi gas of ultracold atoms can faithfully realize the Hubbard model with readily tunable parameters, and thus provide a platform for the systematic exploration of its phase diagram. Realization of strongly correlated phases, however, has been hindered by the need to cool the atoms to temperatures as low as the magnetic exchange energy, and also by the lack of reliable thermometry. Here we demonstrate spin-sensitive Bragg scattering of light to measure AFM spin correlations in a realization of the three-dimensional Hubbard model at temperatures down to 1.4 times that of the AFM phase transition. This temperature regime is beyond the range of validity of a simple high-temperature series expansion, which brings our experiment close to the limit of the capabilities of current numerical techniques, particularly at metallic densities. We reach these low temperatures using a compensated optical lattice technique, in which the confinement of each lattice beam is compensated by a blue-detuned laser beam. The temperature of the atoms in the lattice is deduced by comparing the light scattering to determinant quantum Monte Carlo simulations and numerical linked-cluster expansion calculations. Further refinement of the compensated lattice may produce even lower temperatures which, along with light scattering thermometry, would open avenues for producing and characterizing other novel quantum states of matter, such as the pseudogap regime and correlated metallic states of the two-dimensional Hubbard model.

Confinement-induced resonances in low-dimensional quantum systems

We report on the observation of confinement-induced resonances in strongly interacting quantum-gas systems with tunable interactions for one- and two-dimensional geometry. Atom-atom scattering is substantially modified when the s-wave scattering length approaches the length scale associated with the tight transversal confinement, leading to characteristic loss and heating signatures. Upon introducing an anisotropy for the transversal confinement we observe a splitting of the confinement-induced resonance. With increasing anisotropy additional resonances appear. In the limit of a two-dimensional system we find that one resonance persists.

Pinning quantum phase transition for a Luttinger liquid of strongly interacting bosons

Quantum many-body systems can have phase transitions even at zero temperature; fluctuations arising from Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, as opposed to thermal effects, drive the system from one phase to another. Typically, during the transition the relative strength of two competing terms in the system’s Hamiltonian changes across a finite critical value. A well-known example is the Mott–Hubbard quantum phase transition from a superfluid to an insulating phase, which has been observed for weakly interacting bosonic atomic gases. However, for strongly interacting quantum systems confined to lower-dimensional geometry, a novel type of quantum phase transition may be induced and driven by an arbitrarily weak perturbation to the Hamiltonian. Here we observe such an effect—the sine–Gordon quantum phase transition from a superfluid Luttinger liquid to a Mott insulator—in a one-dimensional quantum gas of bosonic caesium atoms with tunable interactions. For sufficiently strong interactions, the transition is induced by adding an arbitrarily weak optical lattice commensurate with the atomic granularity, which leads to immediate pinning of the atoms. We map out the phase diagram and find that our measurements in the strongly interacting regime agree well with a quantum field description based on the exactly solvable sine–Gordon model. We trace the phase boundary all the way to the weakly interacting regime, where we find good agreement with the predictions of the one-dimensional Bose–Hubbard model. Our results open up the experimental study of quantum phase transitions, criticality and transport phenomena beyond Hubbard-type models in the context of ultracold gases.

All-optical production of a lithium quantum gas using narrow-line laser cooling

We have used the narrow 2S{sub 1/2}{yields}3P{sub 3/2} transition in the ultraviolet (uv) to laser cool and magneto-optically trap (MOT) {sup 6}Li atoms. Laser cooling of lithium is usually performed on the 2S{sub 1/2}{yields}2P{sub 3/2} (D2) transition, and temperatures of {approx}300 {mu}K are typically achieved. The linewidth of the uv transition is seven times narrower than the D2 line, resulting in lower laser cooling temperatures. We demonstrate that a MOT operating on the uv transition reaches temperatures as low as 59 {mu}K. Furthermore, we find that the light shift of the uv transition in an optical dipole trap at 1070 nm is small and blueshifted, facilitating efficient loading from the uv MOT. Evaporative cooling of a two spin-state mixture of {sup 6}Li in the optical trap produces a quantum degenerate Fermi gas with 3x10{sup 6} atoms in a total cycle time of only 11 s.

Interference of interacting matter waves

The phenomenon of matter-wave interference lies at the heart of quantum physics. It has been observed in various contexts in the limit of non-interacting particles as a single-particle effect. Here we observe and control matter-wave interference whose evolution is driven by interparticle interactions. In a multi-path matter-wave interferometer, the macroscopic many-body wave function of an interacting atomic Bose–Einstein condensate develops a regular interference pattern, allowing us to detect and directly visualize the effect of interaction-induced phase shifts. We demonstrate control over the phase evolution by inhibiting interaction-induced dephasing and by refocusing a dephased macroscopic matter wave in a spin-echo-type experiment. Our results show that interactions in a many-body system lead to a surprisingly coherent evolution, possibly enabling narrow-band and high-brightness matter-wave interferometers based on atom lasers.

Three-body correlation functions and recombination rates for bosons in three dimensions and one dimension.

We investigate local three-body correlations for bosonic particles in three dimensions and one dimension as a function of the interaction strength. The three-body correlation function g(3) is determined by measuring the three-body recombination rate in an ultracold gas of Cs atoms. In three dimensions, we measure the dependence of g(3) on the gas parameter in a BEC, finding good agreement with the theoretical prediction accounting for beyond-mean-field effects. In one dimension, we observe a reduction of g(3) by several orders of magnitude upon increasing interactions from the weakly interacting BEC to the strongly interacting Tonks-Girardeau regime, in good agreement with predictions from the Lieb-Liniger model for all strengths of interaction.

Deeply bound ultracold molecules in an optical lattice

We demonstrate efficient transfer of ultracold molecules into a deeply bound rovibrational level of the singlet ground state potential in the presence of an optical lattice. The overall molecule creation efficiency is 25%, and the transfer efficiency to the rovibrational level |v=73,J=2 is above 80%. We find that the molecules in |v=73,J=2 are trapped in the optical lattice, and that the lifetime in the lattice is limited by optical excitation by the lattice light. The molecule trapping time for a lattice depth of 15 atomic recoil energies is about 20?ms. We determine the trapping frequency by the lattice phase and amplitude modulation technique. It will now be possible to transfer the molecules to the rovibrational ground state |v=0,J=0 in the presence of the optical lattice.