arXiv:1812.03875 · Physical Review A
Observation of atom-number fluctuations in optical lattices via quantum collapse and revival dynamics
Tianwei Zhou, Kaixiang Yang, Zijie Zhu, X. D. Yu, Shifeng Yang, Wei Xiong, Xiaoji Zhou, Xuzong Chen, Chen Li, Jörg Schmiedmayer, Xuguang Yue, Yueyang Zhai
Abstract
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.