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arXiv:1802.08779 · New Journal of Physics

Shortcut loading a Bose–Einstein condensate into an optical lattice

Xiaoji Zhou, Shengjie Jin, Jörg Schmiedmayer

Published Apr 30, 2018• 54 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We present an effective and fast (few microseconds) procedure for transferring a Bose–Einstein condensate from the ground state in a harmonic trap into the desired bands of an optical lattice. Our shortcut method is a designed pulse sequence where the time duration and the interval in each step are fully optimized in order to maximize robustness and fidelity of the final state with respect to the target state. The atoms can be prepared in a single band with even or odd parity, and superposition states of different bands can be prepared and manipulated. Furthermore, we extend this idea to the case of two-dimensional or three-dimensional optical lattices where the energies of excited states are degenerate. We experimentally demonstrate various examples and show very good agreement with the theoretical model. Efficient shortcut methods will find applications in the preparation of quantum systems, in quantum information processing, in precise measurement and as a starting point to investigate dynamics in excited bands.

DOI
10.1088/1367-2630/aac11b

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We present an effective and fast (few microseconds) procedure for transferring a Bose–Einstein condensate from the ground state in a harmonic trap into the desired bands of an optical lattice. Our shortcut method is a designed pulse sequence where the time duration and the interval in each step are fully optimized in order to maximize robustness and fidelity of the final state with respect to the target state. The atoms can be prepared in a single band with even or odd parity, and superposition states of different bands can be prepared and manipulated. Furthermore, we extend this idea to the case of two-dimensional or three-dimensional optical lattices where the energies of excited states are degenerate. We experimentally demonstrate various examples and show very good agreement with the theoretical model. Efficient shortcut methods will find applications in the preparation of quantum systems, in quantum information processing, in precise measurement and as a starting point to investigate dynamics in excited bands.
We present a method for the effective preparation of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) into the excited bands of an optical lattice via a standing-wave pulse sequence. With our method, the BEC can be prepared in either a single Bloch state in an excited band or a coherent superposition of states in different bands. Our scheme is experimentally demonstrated by preparing a 87{}^{87}87Rb BEC into the ddd band and the superposition of sss- and ddd-band states of a one-dimensional optical lattice, within a few tens of microseconds. We further measure the decay of the BEC in the ddd-band state and carry an analytical calculation for the collisional decay of atoms in the excited-band states. Our theoretical and experimental results agree well.
Precise control of quantum particles is required for many interesting or novel experiments. Here we consider the task of transporting an atom using an external harmonic potential from one well of an optical lattice to another without motional excitations. To achieve this we apply techniques from Shortcuts to Adiabaticity (STA) enabling fast and robust state manipulation. The process is split up into three independent building blocks; first the atom is loaded into an additional external harmonic trap; this trap is then transported from one lattice site to another and finally the atom is unloaded back onto the lattice by opening the external harmonic trap. We design protocols for each of these building blocks separately using invariant-based inverse engineering. Additionally we extend this method to the transport of a Bose-Einstein condensate described by the Gross-Pitaevskii equation.
We present a shortcuts-to-adiabaticity protocol to load a spin-polarized ultracold Fermi gas from the ground ( s ) band into the first excited ( p ) band of a one-dimensional optical lattice. In contrast to a Bose-Einstein condensate in a shallow lattice—whose narrow quasimomentum distribution admits uniform lattice modulation—a noninteracting Fermi gas occupies the entire first Brillouin zone, rendering high-efficiency transfer across all momentum classes exceptionally challenging. To address this, we cast the loading process as a global, multiparameter optimization problem: We jointly optimize the timing of lattice-depth pulses and the corresponding phase shifts to maximize the ensemble-averaged transfer fidelity over all quasimomentum states. We demonstrate that fine phase tuning dramatically enhances loading efficiency, though the mean fidelity systematically decreases as more quasimomentum modes are occupied. Finally, we benchmark our shortcuts-to-adiabaticity protocol against established high-band-loading methods, underscoring its minimal hardware requirements and submillisecond timescales. Our work provides a practical path for rapid, high-fidelity preparation of Fermi gases in excited lattice orbitals, opening avenues for exploring orbital dynamics, anisotropic interactions, and many-body phenomena.
We report on the efficient design of quantum optimal-control protocols to manipulate the motional states of an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in a one-dimensional optical lattice.Our protocols operate on the momentum comb associated with the lattice.In contrast to previous works also dealing with control in discrete and large Hilbert spaces, our control schemes allow us to reach a wide variety of targets by varying a single parameter, the lattice position.With this technique, we experimentally demonstrate a precise, robust, and versatile control: we optimize the transfer of the BEC to a single or multiple quantized momentum states with full control on the relative phase between the different momentum components.This also allows us to prepare the BEC in a given eigenstate of the lattice band structure, or superposition thereof.
We present a scheme for nonadiabatically loading a Bose-Einstein condensate into the ground state of a one-dimensional optical lattice within a few tens of microseconds, i.e., typically in less than half the Talbot period. This technique of coherent control is based on sequences of pulsed perturbations, and the experimental results demonstrate its feasibility and effectiveness. As the loading process is much shorter than the traditional adiabatic loading time scale, this method may find many applications.
An experimental group in Beijing [Yueyang Zhai et al., Phys. Rev. A 87, 063638 (2013)] introduced the method of the standing-wave pulse sequence for efficiently preparing ultracold bosonic atoms into a specific excited band in a one-dimensional optical lattice. Here, we report on a theoretical extension of their work to the problem of one-dimensional bichromatic superlattices in order to understand a wave packet shaping process in higher bands. Varying the lattice parameters leads to the so-called Dirac point where a pair of excited bands crosses. This paper thus discusses simultaneously efficient excitation of the wave packet to the proximity of the Dirac point and its subsequent dynamics in the force field of a parabolic trap. We numerically explore optimal pulse-sequence parameters and find an optimized sequence which excites more than 99% of the atoms in an ideal situation to the first and second excited bands within 100 $\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{s}$. Our main finding is that the system permitting the Dirac point possesses a region of parameters where the excited energy bands become nearly parabolic, conducive to a robust wave packet with high coherence and isochronicity. We also provide an appropriate data set for future experimentation, including effects of the atom-atom interaction by way of the mean-field nonlinear term.