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arXiv:2405.01499 · Physical Review Research

Optical manipulation of spin states in ultracold magnetic atoms via an inner-shell hz transition

Ferdinand Claude, L. Lafforgue, J. J. A. Houwman, Manfred J. Mark, Francesca Ferlaino

Published Oct 18, 2024• 7 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Lanthanides, like erbium and dysprosium, have emerged as powerful platforms for quantum-gas research due to their diverse properties, including a significant large spin manifold in their absolute ground state. However, effectively exploiting the spin richness necessitates precise manipulation of spin populations, a challenge yet to be fully addressed in this class of atomic species. In this work, we present an all-optical method for deterministically controlling the spin composition of a dipolar bosonic erbium gas, based on a clocklike transition in the telecom window at 1299 n m . The atoms can be prepared in just a few tens of microseconds in any spin-state composition using a sequence of Rabi-pulse pairs, selectively coupling Zeeman sublevels of the ground state with those of the long-lived clocklike state. Finally, we demonstrate that this transition can also be used to create spin-selective light shifts, thus fully suppressing spin-exchange collisions. These experimental results unlock exciting possibilities for implementing advanced spin models in isolated, clean, and fully controllable lattice systems. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

DOI
10.1103/physrevresearch.6.l042016

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Lanthanides, like erbium and dysprosium, have emerged as powerful platforms for quantum-gas research due to their diverse properties, including a significant large spin manifold in their absolute ground state. However, effectively exploiting the spin richness necessitates precise manipulation of spin populations, a challenge yet to be fully addressed in this class of atomic species. In this work, we present an all-optical method for deterministically controlling the spin composition of a dipolar bosonic erbium gas, based on a clocklike transition in the telecom window at 1299 n m . The atoms can be prepared in just a few tens of microseconds in any spin-state composition using a sequence of Rabi-pulse pairs, selectively coupling Zeeman sublevels of the ground state with those of the long-lived clocklike state. Finally, we demonstrate that this transition can also be used to create spin-selective light shifts, thus fully suppressing spin-exchange collisions. These experimental results unlock exciting possibilities for implementing advanced spin models in isolated, clean, and fully controllable lattice systems. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Recently Lanthanide atoms such as dysprosium and erbium have attracted significant attention in quantum simulation with ultracold atoms due to their large magnetic moment and meta-stable excited states. Here, we present our on-going efforts for developing a versatile erbium apparatus in which various exotic states of matter, such as quantum droplets, can be emulated. Slow erbium atoms generated by a spin-flip Zeeman slower are trapped by a magneto-optical trap (MOT). We implement a bi-chromatic MOT, consisting of singlet (4f 126s 2 3H6 → 4f 12( 3H6)6s6p( 1P1)) and triplet (4f 126s 2 3H6 → 4f 12( 3H6)6s6p( 3P1)) transitions, which increases the repetition rate of experiment. We will discuss experimental details that produce a degenerate quantum gas of erbium atoms in the apparatus.
This thesis describes three studies using ultracold gases of bosonic dysprosium atoms. We encode quantum states of interest in the large electronic ground state spin J=8 of each atom. Narrow-line optical transitions are used to manipulate these states by creating strong spin-dependent tensor light shifts with negligible heating. Our detection scheme uses arbitrary spin rotations followed by measurement of projection probabilities with single magnetic sublevel resolution. Firstly, we study a transverse-field Ising model of quantum spin-1/2’s with infinite-range interactions. This model shows a paramagnetic to ferromagnetic quantum phase transition in the thermodynamic limit. Our experiment relies on the formal equivalence between the states of a spin J=8 and exchange-symmetric states of 2J=16 qubits in the sector of maximum total spin. We probe the thermodynamic and dynamical properties, revealing finite-size quantum critical behaviour around the transition point. We also directly test the fundamental link between symmetry breaking and the appearance of a finite order parameter. This is enabled by access to the collective observable defining the underlying Z2 symmetry. Secondly, we partition the electronic spin to reveal entanglement in nonclassical states. By optically coupling the ground level to an excited state J' = J-1, we remove a pair of encoded qubits in a state defined by the light polarisation. We probe the concurrence of qubit pairs extracted from W and squeezed states to quantify their nonclassical character. We directly demonstrate entanglement between the 14- and 2-qubit subsystems via an increase in entropy upon partition. In a complementary set of experiments, we probe the decoherence of a state prepared in the excited level J' = J + 1 and interpret spontaneous emission as a loss of a qubit pair in a random state. This allows us to contrast the robustness of nonclassical pairwise correlations of the W state with the fragility of the coherence of a Schrödinger cat state. Thirdly, we simulate a quantum Hall system by exploiting the electronic ground state spin as a discrete synthetic dimension, and optically coupling it to atomic motion along a second real dimension. This creates an artificial magnetic field, with the two coupled dimensions forming a Hall ribbon with sharp edges along the synthetic axis. We demonstrate that the large number of magnetic sublevels leads to distinct bulk and edge behaviours, and a Hall response characteristic of a non-trivial topology. We perform a preliminary investigation of the entanglement spectrum associated with a partition at the centre of the synthetic dimension, and we explain how future studies could directly implement the corresponding entanglement Hamiltonian. We conclude with a roadmap for extending the techniques presented in this thesis in order to realise many-body topological states.
In this thesis, I present the study of the laser trapping and cooling of a Dysprosium atomic gas. This latter belong to the lanthanide family, it exhibits a large angular momentum in its electronic ground state, making it a suitable candidate for investigating dipolar quantum gases. These systems present a major interest as they can lead to the observation of novel quantum phenomena thanks to the anisotropic and long-range character of the interaction between magnetic dipoles. Moreover, Dysprosium has a rich electronic structure offering the possibility to implement strong light-spin coupling with a reduced heating with respect to alkali species, which paves the way toward the realization of synthetic gauge fields.In this work, I present the experimental investigation of different interaction mechanisms occurring in an ultracold gas of Dysprosium, ranging from light-assisted collisions to dipolar relaxation and evaporative cooling. I expose also the experimental realization of an effective magnetic field, using spin-dependent light-shift, allowing optical control over atomic interactions by means of Feshbach resonances.
Lanthanide atoms have an unusual electron configuration, with a partially filled shell of fff orbitals. This leads to a set of characteristic properties that enable enhanced control over ultracold atoms and their interactions: large numbers of optical transitions with widely varying wavelengths and transition strengths, anisotropic interaction properties between atoms and with light, and a large magnetic moment and spin space present in the ground state. These features in turn enable applications ranging from narrow-line laser cooling and spin manipulation to evaporative cooling through universal dipolar scattering, to the observation of a rotonic dispersion relation, self-bound liquid-like droplets stabilized by quantum fluctuations, and supersolid states. In this short review, we describe how the unusual level structure of lanthanide atoms leads to these key features, and provide a brief and necessarily partial overview of experimental progress in this rapidly developing field.
A form of quantum control is proposed by applying twisted light, also known as optical vortex beams, to drive ultranarrow atomic transitions in neutral Ca, Mg, Yb, Sr, Hg, and Cd bosonic isotopes. This innovative all-optical spectroscopic method introduces spatially tailored electric and magnetic fields to fully rewrite atomic selection rules, reducing simultaneously probe-induced frequency shifts and additional action of external ac and dc field distortions. A twisted-light focused probe beam produces strong longitudinal electric and magnetic fields along the laser propagation axis, which opens the $^{1}S_{0}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}^{3}P_{0}$ doubly forbidden clock transition with a high E1M1E1M1E1M1 two-photon excitation rate. This long-lived clock transition is thus immune to nonscalar electromagnetic perturbations. Zeeman components of the M2M2M2 magnetic quadrupole $^{1}S_{0}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}^{3}P_{2}$ transition considered for quantum computation and simulation are now selectively driven by transverse or longitudinal field gradients with vanishing electric fields. These field gradients are manipulated by the mutual action of orbital and spin angular momentum of the light beam and are used in presence of tunable vector and tensor polarizabilities. A combination of these two different twisted-light induced clock transitions within a single quantum system, at the same magic wavelength and in presence of a common thermal environment, significantly reduces systematic uncertainties. Furthermore, it generates an optical synthetic frequency which efficiently limits the blackbody radiation shift and its variations at room temperature. Engineering light-matter interaction by optical vortices merged with composite pulses will ultimately benefit experimental atomic and molecular platforms targeting an optimal coherent control of quantum states, reliant quantum simulation, novel approaches to atomic interferometry, and precision tests of fundamental theories in physics and high-accuracy optical metrology.
The open inner-shell electronic structure of lanthanides with large magnetic moments gives rise to a rich spectrum of transitions available for laser cooling, trapping, and coherent control. Despite this, the large number of ultraviolet (UV) transitions below 400nm have so far been rarely utilized in dipolar atom experiments. Here, we investigate multiple UV ground state transitions in dysprosium. Several of these UV excited states have the largest decay strengths to the ultralong-lived, low-lying first excited state which are comparable to the most commonly used strongest transitions found in dipolar atoms. Using two-dimensional shelving spectroscopy which improves detection sensitivity and provides a straightforward way to determine the hyperfine-isotope structure and excited state total angular momentum JJJ, we measure isotope shifts, hyperfine coefficients, and create King plots to determine their electronic nature. Such knowledge of these UV transitions which analogously exist in other magnetic atoms is important for optically populating the first excited state and can be used towards creating an optical clock, high resolution imaging in quantum gas microscopy, and probing lanthanide nuclei with enhanced Schiff moments in search of physics beyond the standard model.