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arXiv:0903.3635 · Physical Review A

Dynamics of cold atoms crossing a one-way barrier

Jeremy J. Thorn, Elizabeth A. Schoene, Tao Li, D. Steck

Published Jun 8, 2009• 10 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We implemented an optical one-way potential barrier that allows ultracold $^{87}\text{R}\text{b}$ atoms to transmit through when incident on one side of the barrier but reflect from the other. This asymmetric barrier is a realization of Maxwell's demon, which can be employed to produce phase-space compression and has implications for cooling atoms and molecules not amenable to standard laser-cooling techniques. The barrier comprises two focused Gaussian laser beams that intersect the focus of a far-off-resonant single-beam optical dipole trap that holds the atoms. The main barrier beam presents a state-dependent potential to incident atoms, while the repumping barrier beam optically pumps atoms to a trapped state. We investigated the robustness of the barrier asymmetry to changes in the barrier-beam separation, the initial atomic potential energy, the intensity of the second beam, and the detuning of the first beam. We performed simulations of the atomic dynamics in the presence of the barrier, showing that the initial three-dimensional momentum distribution plays a significant role, and that light-assisted collisions are likely the dominant loss mechanism. We also carefully examined the relationship to Maxwell's demon and explicitly accounted for the apparent decrease in entropy for our particular system.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.79.063402

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We implemented an optical one-way potential barrier that allows ultracold 87Rb^{87}\text{R}\text{b}87Rb atoms to transmit through when incident on one side of the barrier but reflect from the other. This asymmetric barrier is a realization of Maxwell's demon, which can be employed to produce phase-space compression and has implications for cooling atoms and molecules not amenable to standard laser-cooling techniques. The barrier comprises two focused Gaussian laser beams that intersect the focus of a far-off-resonant single-beam optical dipole trap that holds the atoms. The main barrier beam presents a state-dependent potential to incident atoms, while the repumping barrier beam optically pumps atoms to a trapped state. We investigated the robustness of the barrier asymmetry to changes in the barrier-beam separation, the initial atomic potential energy, the intensity of the second beam, and the detuning of the first beam. We performed simulations of the atomic dynamics in the presence of the barrier, showing that the initial three-dimensional momentum distribution plays a significant role, and that light-assisted collisions are likely the dominant loss mechanism. We also carefully examined the relationship to Maxwell's demon and explicitly accounted for the apparent decrease in entropy for our particular system.
We demonstrate an asymmetric optical potential barrier for ultracold 87Rb atoms using laser light tuned near the D2 optical transition. Such a one-way barrier, where atoms incident on one side are transmitted but reflected from the other, is a realization of Maxwell's demon and has important implications for cooling atoms and molecules not amenable to standard laser-cooling techniques. In our experiment, atoms are confined to a far-detuned dipole trap consisting of a single focused Gaussian beam, which is divided near the focus by the barrier. The one-way barrier consists of two focused laser beams oriented almost normal to the dipole-trap axis. The first beam is tuned to present either a potential well or barrier, depending on the state of the incident atoms. On the reflecting side of the barrier, the second beam optically pumps the atoms to the reflecting (barrier) state, thus producing the asymmetry.
We implement and demonstrate the effectiveness of a cooling scheme using a moving, all-optical, one-way barrier to cool a sample of 87Rb^{87}\mathrm{Rb}87Rb atoms, achieving nearly a factor of 2 reduction in temperature. The one-way barrier, composed of two focused, Gaussian laser beams, allows atoms incident on one side to transmit, while reflecting atoms incident on the other. The one-way barrier is adiabatically swept through a sample of atoms contained in a far-off-resonant, single-beam, optical dipole trap that forms a nearly harmonic trapping potential. As the barrier moves longitudinally through the potential, atoms become trapped to one side of the barrier with reduced kinetic energy. The adiabatic translation of the barrier leaves the atoms at the bottom of the trapping potential, only minimally increasing their kinetic energy.
This thesis examines two complimentary methods for the laser cooling of a magnetically guided ultra-cold atom beam. If combined, these methods could serve as a starting point for high-through put and possibly even continuous production of Bose-Einstein condensates. First, a mechanism is outlined to harvest ultra cold atoms from a magnetically guided atom beam into an optical dipole trap. A continuous loading scheme is described that dissipates the directed kinetic energy of a captured atom via deceleration by a magnetic potential barrier followed by optical pumping to the energetically lowest Zeeman sublevel. The application of this scheme to the transfer of ultra cold chromium atoms from a magnetically guided atom beam into a deep optical dipole trap is investigated via numerical simulations of the loading process. Based on the results of the theoretical studies the feasibility and the efficiency of our loading scheme, including the realisation of a suitable magnetic field configuration, are analysed. Second, experiments were conducted on the transverse laser cooling of a magnetically guided beam of ultra cold chromium atoms. Radial compression by a tapering of the guide is employed to adiabatically heat the beam. Inside the tapered section heat is extracted from the atom beam by a two-dimensional optical molasses perpendicular to it, resulting in a significant increase of atomic phase space density. A magnetic offset field is applied to prevent optical pumping to untrapped states. Our results demonstrate that by a suitable choice of the magnetic offset field, the cooling beam intensity and detuning, atom losses and longitudinal heating can be avoided. Final temperatures below 65 µK have been achieved, corresponding to an increase of phase space density in the guided beam by more than a factor of 30.
We demonstrate a general and efficient informational cooling technique for atoms that is an experimental realization of a one-dimensional Maxwell's demon. The technique transfers atoms from a magnetic trap into an optical trap via a single spontaneous Raman transition that is discriminatively driven near each atom's classical turning point. In this way, nearly all of the atomic ensemble's kinetic energy in one dimension is removed. We develop a simple analytical model to predict the efficiency of transfer between the traps and provide evidence that the performance is limited only by particle dynamics in the magnetic trap. Transfer efficiencies up to 2.2% are reported. We show that efficiency can be traded for phase-space compression, and we report compression up to a factor of 350. Our results represent a 15-fold improvement over our previous demonstration of the cooling technique.
We present an improvement of our previously proposed optical Maxwell demon1 that captures and cools Na atoms in a gas cell. The intersection of three pairs of orthogonal counterpropagating light beams tuned below resonance provides strong viscous forces on atoms.2 In a vapor cell, it is the ability of atoms to enter this intersection from the outside that allows our demon to collect a high density of cold atoms. The original scheme suffers a reduced collection rate because the 3-D damping region is largely surrounded by a region of 1-D damping produced by only a single pair of beams. This deficiency can be removed by several methods, one of which involves optical pumping. Sodium requires two frequencies to prevent optical pumping and maintain the damping force. If two pairs of beams contain one frequency and the third pair contains the other frequency, the effect of the 1-D damping is reduced while the region of 3-D damping is largely unaffected. Thus, an atom can enter the intersection undeflected by a region containing only a single pair of beams. We present computer analysis and experimental progress.
An atom placed in a focused laser beam will experience a dipole force due to the gradient in the interaction energy, which is analogous to the well-known optical tweezers effect. This force will be dependent on the velocity of the atom due to the Doppler effect, which could potentially be used to implement a Maxwell's demon. Photon scattering and other forms of dissipation can be negligibly small, which would seem to contradict quantum information proofs that a Maxwell's demon must dissipate a minimum amount of energy. We show that the velocity dependence of the dipole force is cancelled out by another force that is related to the gradient in the phase of the laser beam. As a result, a Maxwell's demon cannot be implemented in this way.