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arXiv:2002.10794 · Physical Review A

Quantum rotor atoms in light beams with orbital angular momentum: Highly accurate rotation sensor

Igor Kuzmenko, Tetyana Kuzmenko, Y. B. Band

Published Dec 30, 2020• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Atoms trapped in a red-detuned retroreflected Laguerre-Gaussian beam undergo orbital motion within rings whose centers are on the axis of the laser beam. We determine the wave functions, energies, and degeneracies of such quantum rotors (QRs), and the microwave transitions between the energy levels. We then show how such QR atoms can be used as highly accurate rotation sensors when the rings are singly occupied.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.102.063127

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Atoms trapped in a red-detuned retroreflected Laguerre-Gaussian beam undergo orbital motion within rings whose centers are on the axis of the laser beam. We determine the wave functions, energies, and degeneracies of such quantum rotors (QRs), and the microwave transitions between the energy levels. We then show how such QR atoms can be used as highly accurate rotation sensors when the rings are singly occupied.
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In a cold atom gas subject to a two-dimensional spin-dependent optical lattice potential with hexagonal symmetry, trapped atoms execute circular motion around the potential minima. Such atoms are elementary quantum rotors. The theory of such quantum rotors is developed. Wave functions, energies, and degeneracies are determined for both bosonic and fermionic atoms, and magnetic dipole transitions between quantum rotor states are elucidated. Quantum rotors in optical lattices with precisely one atom per unit cell can be used as extremely high sensitivity rotation sensors, accelerometers, and magnetometers.
Abstract To advance inertial navigation, we present the scheme for a compact quantum sensor which is based on the quantum phenomenon of the angular Bloch oscillations and measuring exclusively the angular acceleration of slow external rotation. We study the dynamics of ultra-cold atoms confined in a toroidal trap with a ring-lattice along the azimuth angle, realized with the superposition of two copropagating Laguerre–Gaussian beams. In the presence of external rotation with a small angular acceleration, or a prescribed linear chirp between the two beams, the measured angular momentum of the trapped atoms exhibits a specific periodic behaviour in time, which we call as the angular Bloch oscillations. This quantum phenomenon is shown to be a key element of fruitful applications for (i) an efficient transfer of quantized angular momentum from the light to the atoms by controlling the chirp, and (ii) the direct determination of the angular acceleration of external rotation by measuring the Bloch period.
The interaction of atoms and molecules with structured light, specifically laser light endowed with the property of orbital angular momentum, such as Laguerre-Gaussian light, is discussed. The primary effects of interest here are the influence of the light on the gross motion of atoms and molecules and the possibilities this motion provides for particle manipulation in cooling, heating and trapping experiments. It turns out that, in addition to the possibility of modifying translational motion, suitably structured light can facilitate the manipulation of rotational motion. The latter possibility arises from a light-induced torque that is directly attributable to the orbital angular momentum property of the light. We outline the physics responsible for these effects and consider applications to typical cases in which atoms and ions are subject to near resonant Laguerre-Gaussian beams, leading to characteristic trajectories and eventual trapping in specific regions. Details are given for optical molasses configurations based on twisted light beams arranged in one-, two- and three-dimensional counter-propagating pairs. We extend consideration to the case of liquid crystals, subject to Laguerre-Gaussian light tuned far off-resonance, and show how this leads to the twisting of the directors in the liquid crystal, coinciding with the intensity distribution of the light.
We show that a two-level atom moving in a Laguerre-Gaussian beam is subject to a light-induced torque, TTT, about the beam axis which is directly proportional to lll, the orbital angular momentum quantum number of the mode. The torque, which has a Lorentzian frequency response which includes an azimuthal lll-dependent Doppler shift in the detuning term, reduces in the saturation limit to the simple form $T\ensuremath{\approx}\ensuremath{\hbar}l\ensuremath{\Gamma}$, where $2\ensuremath{\Gamma}$ is the decay rate of the excited state.