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arXiv:1305.1832 · Physical Review X

Probing Atom-Surface Interactions by Diffraction of Bose-Einstein Condensates

Helmar Bender, Christian Stehle, Claus Zimmermann, Sebastian Slama, Johannes Fiedler, Stefan Scheel, Stefan Yoshi Buhmann, Валерий Николаевич Марачевский

Published Feb 27, 2014• 64 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The Casimir force operating between two objects placed in a vacuum has its origin in the ``virtual photons'' that fill the vacuum. A combined experimental and theoretical investigation establishes a complete landscape for this force between a single atom and a metal grating---a problem not only of fundamental interest but also relevant to surface quantum optical experiments.

DOI
10.1103/physrevx.4.011029

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The Casimir force operating between two objects placed in a vacuum has its origin in the ``virtual photons'' that fill the vacuum. A combined experimental and theoretical investigation establishes a complete landscape for this force between a single atom and a metal grating---a problem not only of fundamental interest but also relevant to surface quantum optical experiments.
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An atom in front of a surface is one of the simplest and fundamental problem in physics. Yet, it allows testing quantum electrodynamics, while providing potential platforms and interfaces for quantum technologies. Despite its simplicity, combined with strong scientific and technological interests, atom-surface physics, at its fundamental level, remains largely unexplored mainly because of challenges associated with precise control of the atom-surface distance. Nevertheless, substantial breakthroughs have been made over the last two decades. With the development of cold and quantum atomic gases, one has gained further control on atom-surface position, naturally leading to improved precision in the Casimir–Polder interaction measurement. Advances have also been reported in finding experimental knobs to tune and even reverse the Casimir–Polder interaction strength. So far, this has only been achieved for atoms in short-lived excited states, however, the rapid progresses in material sciences, e.g., metamaterials and topological materials has inspired new ideas for controlling the atom-surface interaction in long-lived states. In addition, combining nano-photonic and atom-surface physics is now envisioned for applications in quantum information processing. The first purpose of this Review is to give a general overview on the latest experimental developments in atom-surface physics. The second main objective is to sketch a vision of the future of the field, mainly inspired by the abundant theoretical works and proposals available now in the literature.
Atom-field interactions, induced by the vacuum of the electromagnetic field, exhibit a variety of fundamental phenomena and effects. In this paper, we study the electromagnetically induced atomic grating due to the vacuum state of the radiation field. Using an ensemble of cold atoms, strongly coupled to an optical cavity, we show that a probe field, propagating through the atomic medium, diffracts to zeroth- and first-order diffraction peaks with few photons and even by the electromagnetic vacuum field of the cavity mode. As the number of photons in the cavity increases, the intensity of the first-order diffraction peak initially rises and then exhibits a decreasing trend. Furthermore, we observe that the first-order peak intensity reaches its maximum at resonance for both the vacuum and single-photon cavity state. However, as the number of photons increases further, this peak at resonance transforms into a dip, accompanied by two side peaks at off-resonance positions. This transition from a peak to a dip may potentially be used to distinguish the quantum state of the cavity.