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arXiv:0911.4420 · Physical Review Letters

Sub-Poissonian Atom-Number Fluctuations by Three-Body Loss in Mesoscopic Ensembles

S. Whitlock, Caspar F. Ockeloen-Korppi, R. J. C. Spreeuw

Published Mar 26, 2010• 38 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We show that three-body loss of trapped atoms leads to sub-Poissonian atom-number fluctuations. We prepare hundreds of dense ultracold ensembles in an array of magnetic microtraps which undergo rapid three-body decay. The shot-to-shot fluctuations of the number of atoms per trap are sub-Poissonian, for ensembles comprising 50-300 atoms. The measured relative variance or Fano factor F=0.53+/-0.22 agrees very well with the prediction by an analytic theory (F=3/5) and numerical calculations. These results will facilitate studies of quantum information science with mesoscopic ensembles.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.104.120402

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We show that three-body loss of trapped atoms leads to sub-Poissonian atom-number fluctuations. We prepare hundreds of dense ultracold ensembles in an array of magnetic microtraps which undergo rapid three-body decay. The shot-to-shot fluctuations of the number of atoms per trap are sub-Poissonian, for ensembles comprising 50-300 atoms. The measured relative variance or Fano factor F=0.53+/-0.22 agrees very well with the prediction by an analytic theory (F=3/5) and numerical calculations. These results will facilitate studies of quantum information science with mesoscopic ensembles.
We investigate experimentally the number statistics of a mesoscopic ensemble of cold atoms in a microscopic dipole trap loaded from a magneto-optical trap and find that the atom-number fluctuations are reduced with respect to a Poisson distribution due to light-assisted two-body collisions. For numbers of atoms $N\ensuremath{\gtrsim}2$, we measure a reduction factor (Fano factor) of $0.72\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.07$, which differs from 1 by more than four standard deviations. We analyze this fact by a general stochastic model describing the competition between the loading of the trap from a reservoir of cold atoms and multiatom losses, leading to a master equation. Applied to our experimental regime, this model indicates an asymptotic value of 3/43/43/4 for the Fano factor at large NNN and in the steady state. We thus show that we have reached the ultimate level of reduction in number fluctuations in our system.
A method is proposed to produce atomic ensembles with sub-Poissonian atom-number distributions. The method consists of removing the excess atoms using the interatomic interactions induced by Rydberg dressing. The selective removal of atoms occurs via spontaneous decay into untrapped states using an electromagnetically induced transparency scheme. Ensembles with the desired number of atoms can be produced almost deterministically. Numerical simulations predict a strong reduction of the atom-number fluctuations, with the variance 20 times less than the Poisson noise level (the predicted Fano factor is $F\ensuremath{\simeq}0.05$). Strikingly, the method is suitable for both fermions and bosons. It solves the problem of the atom-number fluctuations in bosons, whose weak interactions have usually been an obstacle to controlling the number of atoms.
We report manipulation of the atom number statistics associated with Bose-Einstein condensed atoms confined in an array of weakly linked mesoscopic traps. We used the interference of atoms released from the traps as a sensitive probe of these statistics. By controlling relative strengths of the tunneling rate between traps and atom-atom interactions within each trap, we observed trap states characterized by sub-Poissonian number fluctuations and adiabatic transitions between these number-squeezed states and coherent states of the atom field. The quantum states produced in this work may enable substantial gains in sensitivity for atom interference-based instruments as well as fundamental studies of quantum phase transitions.
We demonstrate preparation and detection of an atom number distribution in a one-dimensional atomic lattice with the variance -14 dB below the Poissonian noise level. A mesoscopic ensemble containing a few thousand atoms is trapped in the evanescent field of a nanofiber. The atom number is measured through dual-color homodyne interferometry with a pW-power shot noise limited probe. Strong coupling of the evanescent probe guided by the nanofiber allows for a real-time measurement with a precision of ±8 atoms on an ensemble of some 10(3) atoms in a one-dimensional trap. The method is very well suited for generating collective atomic entangled or spin-squeezed states via a quantum nondemolition measurement as well as for tomography of exotic atomic states in a one-dimensional lattice.
We have experimentally studied the magnetic-field dependence of the decay of a Bose-Einstein condensate of metastable 4{}^{4}4He atoms confined in an optical dipole trap, for atoms in the m=+1m=+1m=+1 and $m=\ensuremath{-}1$ magnetic substates, and up to 450 G. Our measurements confirm longstanding calculations of the two-body loss rate coefficient that show an increase above 50 G. We demonstrate that for $m=\ensuremath{-}1$ atoms decay is due to three-body recombination only, with a three-body loss rate coefficient of $6.5{(0.4)}_{\mathrm{stat}}{(0.6)}_{\mathrm{sys}}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}27}$ cm6{}^{6}6s${}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$, which is interesting in the context of universal few-body theory. We have also searched for a recently predicted ddd-wave Feshbach resonance, but did not observe it.
Using the quantum collapse and revival phenomenon of a Bose--Einstein condensate in three-dimensional optical lattices, the atom number statistics on each lattice site are experimentally investigated. We observe an interaction driven time evolution of on-site number fluctuations in a constant lattice potential with the collapse and revival time ratio as the figure of merit. Through a shortcut loading procedure, we prepare a three-dimensional array of coherent states with Poissonian number fluctuations. The following dynamics clearly show the interaction effect on the evolution of the number fluctuations from Poissonian to sub-Poissonian. Our method can be used to create squeezed states, which are important in precision measurement.