Coherent spinor dynamics in a spin-1 Bose condensate
Abstract
Collisions in a thermal gas are perceived as random or incoherent as a consequence of the large numbers of initial and final quantum states accessible to the system. In a quantum gas, e.g. a Bose-Einstein condensate or a degenerate Fermi gas, the phase space accessible to low energy collisions is so restricted that collisions be-come coherent and reversible. Here, we report the observation of coherent spin-changing collisions in a gas of spin-1 bosons. Starting with condensates occupying two spin states, a condensate in the third spin state is coherently and reversibly created by atomic collisions. The observed dynamics are analogous to Josephson oscillations in weakly connected superconductors and represent a type of matter-wave four-wave mixing. The spin-dependent scattering length is determined from these oscillations to be -1.45(18) Bohr. Finally, we demonstrate coherent control of the evolution of the system by applying differential phase shifts to the spin states using magnetic fields.
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0509341,
title = {Coherent spinor dynamics in a spin-1 Bose condensate},
author = {Ming-Shien Chang and Qishu Qin and Wenxian Zhang and Li You and Michael S. Chapman},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0509341},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
19 pages, 3 figures