Spin self-rephasing and very long coherence times in a trapped atomic ensemble
Quantum Physics
2015-03-13 v2 Atomic Physics
Abstract
We perform Ramsey spectroscopy on the ground state of ultra-cold 87Rb atoms magnetically trapped on a chip in the Knudsen regime. Field inhomogeneities over the sample should limit the 1/e contrast decay time to about 3 s, while decay times of 58 s are actually observed. We explain this surprising result by a spin self-rephasing mechanism induced by the identical spin rotation effect originating from particle indistinguishability. We propose a theory of this synchronization mechanism and obtain good agreement with the experimental observations. The effect is general and susceptible to appear in other physical systems.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1003.5925,
title = {Spin self-rephasing and very long coherence times in a trapped atomic ensemble},
author = {Christian Deutsch and Fernando Ramirez-Martinez and Clement Lacroûte and Friedemann Reinhard and Tobias Schneider and Jean-Noël Fuchs and Frédéric Piéchon and Franck Laloë and Jakob Reichel and Peter Rosenbusch},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1003.5925},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
Revised version; improved description of the theoretical treatment