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arXiv:1406.3572 · EPJ Quantum Technology

Analog quantum simulation of gravitational waves in a Bose-Einstein condensate

Tupac Bravo, Carlos Sabín, Ivette Fuentes

Published Jan 4, 2015• 15 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We show how to vary the physical properties of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in order to mimic an effective gravitational-wave spacetime. In particular, we focus in the simulation of the recently discovered creation of particles by a real spacetime distortion in box-type traps. We show that, by modulating the speed of sound in the BEC, the phonons experience the effects of a simulated spacetime ripple with experimentally amenable parameters. These results will inform the experimental programme of gravitational wave astronomy with cold atoms.

DOI
10.1140/epjqt16

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We show how to vary the physical properties of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in order to mimic an effective gravitational-wave spacetime. In particular, we focus in the simulation of the recently discovered creation of particles by a real spacetime distortion in box-type traps. We show that, by modulating the speed of sound in the BEC, the phonons experience the effects of a simulated spacetime ripple with experimentally amenable parameters. These results will inform the experimental programme of gravitational wave astronomy with cold atoms.
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Abstract An interesting proposal for detecting gravitational waves involves quantum metrology of Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs). We consider a forced modulation of the speed of sound of a BEC, whose modulation frequency matches that of an incoming continuous gravitational wave. The speed of sound modulation induces parametric resonance in the BEC, which in turn enhances sensitivity of the BEC to gravitational waves. We find that such a BEC detector could potentially be used to detect gravitational waves across several orders of magnitude in frequency, with the sensitivity depending on the speed of sound, size of the condensate, and frequency of the phonons. We discuss the sensitivity of a possible BEC experiment and comment on the current technological limitations. We also comment on the noise sources as well as what is necessary for such a detector to become feasible.
A description of the dynamical response of uniformly trapped Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) to oscillating external gravitational fields is developed, with the inclusion of damping. Two different effects that can lead to the creation of phonons in the BEC are identified; direct driving and parametric driving. Additionally, the oscillating gravitational field couples phonon modes, which can lead to the transition of excitations between modes. The special case of the gravitational field of a small, oscillating sphere located closely to the BEC is considered. It is shown that measurement of the effects may be possible for oscillating source masses down to the milligram scale, with a signal to noise ratio of the order of 10. To this end, noise terms and variations of experimental parameters are discussed and generic experimental parameters are given for specific atom species. The results of this article suggest the utility of BECs as sensors for the gravitational field of very small oscillating objects which may help pave the way towards gravity experiments with masses in the quantum regime.
We present a study of analog cosmological models in Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) and in graphene, and superfluidity in a box-shaped traps. We start by examining the dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) trapped inside an expanding toroid that can realize an analog inflationary universe. The expanding condensate forces phonons to undergo redshift and damping due to quantum pressure, owing to the thinness of the ring. We predict that such expanding BECs can exhibit spontaneous phonon creation from the vacuum state and show how it would manifest in the atom density and density correlations and discuss connections with the inflationary theory. We then extend this work to study entanglement of the spontaneously generated phonon pairs, for which we use the techniques of quantum continuous variables. We then develop a protocol to experimentally measure the correlations entering the covariance matrix, allowing an experimental quantification of the entanglement properties of the inflationary BEC. We then present a of how a spatially-varying quasiparticle velocity in honeycomb lattices, achievable using strained graphene or in engineered cold-atom optical lattices that have a spatial dependent tunneling amplitude, can yield the Rindler Hamiltonian embodying an observer accelerating in Minkowski spacetime. Within this setup, a sudden switch-on of the spatially-varying strain yields a spontaneous production of electron-hole pairs, an analog version of the Unruh effect characterized by the Unruh temperature. We discuss how this thermal behavior, along with Takagi's statistics inversion, can manifest themselves in photo-emission and scanning tunneling microscopy experiments. We show that the electronic conductivity grows linearly with frequency ω\omegaω, vanishing in the DC limit. Finally, we find that the total electronic energy at zero environment temperature looks like Planck's blackbody result for photons due to the aforementioned statistics inversion, whereas for an initial thermally excited state of fermions, the total internal energy undergoes stimulated particle reduction. Finally, we study ultracold Fermi gases trapped inside a three-dimensional box with vanishing boundary conditions, with interactions modeled using the Fermi-Huang pseudopotential. Taylor expanding the pairing to linear order in position, solves the gap equation yielding the transition temperature and local pairing amplitude that vanishes at the edges.
Squeezed, nonclassical states are an integral tool of quantum metrology due to their ability to push the sensitivity of a measurement apparatus beyond the limits of classical states. While their creation in light has become a standard technique, the production of squeezed states of the collective excitations in gases of ultracold atoms, the phonons of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), is a comparably recent problem. This task is continuously gaining relevance with a growing number of proposals for BEC-based quantum metrological devices and the possibility to apply them in the detection of gravitational waves. The objective of this thesis is to find whether the recently described effect of an oscillating external potential on a uniform BEC can be exploited to generate two-mode squeezed phonon states, given present day technology. This question brings together elements of a range of fields beyond cold atoms, such as general relativity and Efimov physics. To answer it, the full transformation caused by the oscillating potential on an initially thermal phononic state is considered, allowing to find an upper bound for the magnitude of this perturbation as well as to quantify the quality of the final state with respect to its use in metrology. These findings are then applied to existing experiments to judge the feasibility of the squeezing scheme and while the results indicate that they are not well suited for it, a setup is proposed that allows for its efficient implementation and seems within experimental reach. In view of the vast parameter space leaving room for optimization, the considered mechanism could find applications not only in the gravitational wave detector that originally motivated this work, but more generally in the field of quantum metrology based on ultracold atoms.
We investigate a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) as a gravitational wave detector, and study its sensitivity by optimizing the properties of the condensate and the measurement duration. We show that detecting kilohertz gravitational waves is limited by current experimental techniques in squeezing BEC phonons. Without focussing on a specific detector setup, our study shows that substantive future improvements in technology (e.g., increasing the squeezing of BEC states or their physical size) will be necessary for such a detector to be competitive in measuring gravitational waves of astrophysical and/or cosmological origin.