Related papers: Optical pumping and relaxation of atomic populatio…
Although the study of ultracold quantum gases trapped by light is a prominent direction of modern research, the quantum properties of light were widely neglected in this field. Quantum optics with quantum gases closes this gap and addresses…
Quantitative spectroscopy has been used to measure accurately the Doppler-broadening of atomic transitions in $^{85}$Rb vapor. By using a conventional platinum resistance thermometer and the Doppler thermometry technique, we were able to…
Magneto-optical traps are central to atomic and molecular quantum technologies and precision tests of fundamental physics, where both sensitivity and bandwidth scale strongly with atom number and loading rate. We demonstrate that employing…
Quadrature squeezing of light is investigated in a hybrid atom-optomechanical system comprising a cloud of two-level atoms and a movable mirror mediated by a single-mode cavity field. When the system is at high temperatures with quadrature…
Cavity quantum electrodynamics describes the fundamental interactions between light and matter, and how they can be controlled by shaping the local environment. For example, optical microcavities allow high-efficiency detection and…
A scheme for fast, compact, and controllable acceleration of heavy particles in vacuum is proposed, in which two counterpropagating lasers with variable frequencies drive a beat-wave structure with variable phase velocity, thus allowing for…
Using a master-equation approach for the description of coherent and incoherent dynamics in `artificial atoms and molecules', we present a theoretical analysis of situations where intense laser fields lead to pronounced renormalizations of…
We present a steady state analysis of a quantum-mechanical model of an atom laser. A single-mode atomic trap coupled to a continuum of external modes is driven by a saturable pumping mechanism. In the dilute flux regime, where atom-atom…
We report on time-resolved optical and terahertz ultrafast spectroscopy of charge-carrier dynamics in the room-temperature antiferromagnetic semiconductor $\alpha $-MnTe. By optically pumping the system with 1.55 eV photons at room…
We present detailed discussions of cooling and trapping mechanisms for an atom in an optical trap inside an optical cavity, as relevant to recent experiments. The interference pattern of cavity QED and trapping fields in space makes the…
The atom-by-atom characterization of quantum gases requires the development of novel measurement techniques. One particularly promising new technique demonstrated in recent experiments uses strong fluorescent laser scattering from neutral…
We present a pump-probe technique for monitoring ultrafast polarizability changes. In particular, we use it to measure the plasma density created at the temporal focus of a self-compressing higher-order pump soliton in gas-filled…
We investigate theoretically the mechanical effects of light on atoms trapped by an external potential, whose dipole transition couples to the mode of an optical resonator and is driven by a laser. We derive an analytical expression for the…
We study the quantum dynamics of a material wavepacket bouncing off a modulated atomic mirror in the presence of a gravitational field. We find the occurrence of coherent accelerated dynamics for atoms beyond the familiar regime of…
We present a microscopic laser model for many atoms coupled to a single cavity mode, including the light forces resulting from atom-field momentum exchange. Within a semiclassical description, we solve the equations for atomic motion and…
The effect of quantum interference on the optical properties of a pumped-probe three-level V-type atomic system is investigated. The probe absorption, dispersion, group index and optical bistability beyond the two-photon resonance condition…
Optically pumped magnetometers (OPMs) based on alkali-atom vapors are ultra-sensitive devices for dc and low-frequency ac magnetic measurements. Here, in combination with fast-field-cycling hardware and high-resolution spectroscopic…
Tests of quantum mechanics on a macroscopic scale require extreme control over mechanical motion and its decoherence. Quantum control of mechanical motion has been achieved by engineering the radiation-pressure coupling between a…
Compressed ultrafast photography (CUP) is applied to laser breakdown in argon and xenon under pressures up to 40atm to obtain 2D images of the plasma dynamics of single events with a spatial resolution of 250x100 pixels and an equivalent…
We theoretically investigate the optical bistability phenomenon in an ensemble of $N$ non-interacting three-level atoms trapped inside an optical cavity. The atoms are in a $\Lambda$-level configuration, where one atomic transition is…