Related papers: Shifting the boundaries: pulse-shape effects in th…
Although a plethora of techniques are now available for controlling the group velocity of an optical wave packet, there are very few options for creating accelerating or decelerating wave packets whose group velocity varies controllably…
We have observed the propagation of an approximately 35 ns long light pulse with a negative group velocity through a laser-cooled 85Rb atomic medium. The anomalous dispersion results from linear atom-light interaction, and is unrelated to…
A planar laser pulse propagating in vacuum can exhibit an extremely large ponderomotive force. This force, however, cannot impart net energy to an electron: As the pulse overtakes the electron, the initial impulse from its rising edge is…
The atom-optics kicked rotor can be used to prepare specific momentum distributions on a discrete basis set. We implement a continuous-time quantum walk and a quantum search protocol in this momentum basis. In particular we propose ways to…
We consider the time dependent dynamics of an atom in a two-color pumped cavity, longitudinally through a side mirror and transversally via direct driving of the atomic dipole. The beating of the two driving frequencies leads to a time…
As an alternative to state-of-the-art laser frequency stabilisation using ultra-stable cavities, it has been proposed to exploit the non-linear effects from coupling of atoms with a narrow transition to an optical cavity. Here we have…
The motion of atoms and nanoparticles in a trap formed by sequences of counter-propagating light pulses has been analyzed. The atomic state is described by a wave function constructed with the use of the Monte Carlo method, whereas the…
The tremendous progress in high-intensity laser technology and the establishment of dedicated high-field laboratories in recent years have paved the way towards a first observation of quantum vacuum nonlinearities at the high-intensity…
We study the mechanisms responsible for quantum diffusion in the quasiperiodic kicked rotor. We report experimental measurements of the diffusion constant on the atomic version of the system and develop a theoretical approach (based on the…
We briefly report on some exact results [G. Fiore, arXiv:1312.4665 preprint, to appear in J. Phys. A] regarding plane waves in a relativistic cold plasma. If the plasma, initially at rest, is reached by a transverse plane electromagnetic…
We analytically investigate the recently proposed and implemented discrete-time quantum walk based on kicked ultra-cold atoms. We show how the internal level structure of the kicked atoms leads to the emergence of a relative light-shift…
We address the problem of achieving an optical random laser with a cloud of cold atoms, in which gain and scattering are provided by the same atoms. The lasing threshold can be defined using the on-resonance optical thickness b0 as a single…
This paper presents the nonlinear dynamics of laser cooled and trapped cesium atoms placed inside an optical cavity and interacting with a probe light beam slightly detuned from the 6S1/2(F=4) to 6P3/2(F=5) transition. The system exhibits…
We investigate theoretically the slow group velocity of a pulse probe laser propagating through a cold sample and interacting with atoms in a three-level $\Lambda$ configuration having losses towards external states. The EIT phenomenon…
When generating light with orbital angular momentum by imprinting orbital phase onto a standard Gaussian beam, it is often assumed that the propagation of the generated spatial mode is a Laguerre-Gaussian. However, the true propagation of…
Spin precession in Rubidium atoms is investigated through a pump-probe technique. The excited wave packet corresponds to a precession of spin and orbital angular momentum around the total angular momentum. We show that using shaped laser…
We experimentally investigate the effects of phase noise on the resonant and non-resonant dynamics of the atom-optics kicked rotor. Employing sinusoidal phase modulation at various frequencies, resonances are found corresponding to periodic…
Energetic particles in a turbulent medium can be subject to second-order Fermi acceleration due to scattering on moving plasma waves. This mechanism leads to growing particle momentum dispersion and, at the same time, increases the mean…
Frequency up-shifting of laser light in a beam-driven plasma wakefield has the potential to provide high-intensity sources of short wavelength radiation. Simulations have demonstrated that a laser pulse can undergo large frequency shifts,…
We show that the quantum fidelity is accessible to cold atom experiments for a large class of evolutions in periodical potentials, properly taking into account the experimental initial conditions of the atomic ensemble. We prove…