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Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics

Decoherence and dephasing of strongly driven colliding Bose condensates

Nadav Y. Katz, Roee Ozeri, Eitan E. Rowen, Erez Gershnabel, Nir Davidson

Published Jan 1, 2004• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) serve as a model system for the study of decoherence and dephasing processes. We denote ‘dephasing’ as the loss of overall common phase due to the coherent evo lution of the macroscopic wavefunction of the BEC. In contrast, ‘decoherence’ in this case is the coupling of the macroscopic wavefunction state to a continuum of initially unoccupied momentum excitations via collisions. Decoherence is driven by the fluctuations in th ese momentum modes and is irreversible on the timescales larger than the so -called ‘memory time’ of the continuum [1].

DOI
10.1364/iqec.2004.imm2

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Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) serve as a model system for the study of decoherence and dephasing processes. We denote ‘dephasing’ as the loss of overall common phase due to the coherent evo lution of the macroscopic wavefunction of the BEC. In contrast, ‘decoherence’ in this case is the coupling of the macroscopic wavefunction state to a continuum of initially unoccupied momentum excitations via collisions. Decoherence is driven by the fluctuations in th ese momentum modes and is irreversible on the timescales larger than the so -called ‘memory time’ of the continuum [1].
We report on a series of measurements of decoherence and wave-packet dephasing between two colliding, strongly coupled, identical Bose-Einstein condensates. We measure, in the strong-excitation regime, a suppression of the mean-field shift, compared to the shift which is observed for a weak excitation. This suppression is explained by applying the Gross-Pitaevskii energy functional. By selectively counting only the nondecohered fraction in a time-of-flight image we observe oscillations for which both inhomogeneous and Doppler broadening are strongly suppressed. If no post-selection is used, the decoherence rate due to collisions can be extracted and is in agreement with the local density average calculated rate.
We discuss some recent work on the dephasing of Bose-Einstein condensates of interacting atoms due to fluctuations in the chemical potential μ. At vanishing temperature such fluctuations are due to the uncertainty of the number of particles in the condensate caused by the depletion effect. The dephasing is in this case a non-diffusive (and in principle reversible) effect called ‘collapse’ (and ‘revival’). Above a certain cross-over temperature the dephasing proceeds mainly via a diffusive process which follows in time a short and ineffective phase collapse. The phase-diffusion constant is dominated by the temperature dependent condensate-number fluctuations caused by the scattering of low-energy excitations off the condensate. We also discuss the (in general subdominant) contribution of the occupation-number fluctuations in quasi-particle states in the thermal cloud. For simplicity we discuss here results for a box-like trapping potential.
Temporal coherence is a fundamental property of macroscopic quantum systems, such as lasers in optics and Bose-Einstein condensates in atomic gases and it is a crucial issue for interferometry applications with light or matter waves. Whereas the laser is an ``open'' quantum system, ultracold atomic gases are weakly coupled to the environment and may be considered as isolated. The coherence time of a condensate is then intrinsic to the system and its derivation is out of the frame of laser theory. Using quantum kinetic theory, we predict that the interaction with noncondensed modes gradually smears out the condensate phase, with a variance growing as At2+Bt+C\mathcal{A}{t}^{2}+\mathcal{B}t+\mathcal{C}At2+Bt+C at long times ttt, and we give a quantitative prediction for A\mathcal{A}A, B\mathcal{B}B, and C\mathcal{C}C. Whereas the coefficient A\mathcal{A}A vanishes for vanishing energy fluctuations in the initial state, the coefficients B\mathcal{B}B and C\mathcal{C}C are remarkably insensitive to these fluctuations. The coefficient B\mathcal{B}B describes a diffusive motion of the condensate phase that sets the ultimate limit to the condensate coherence time. We briefly discuss the possibility to observe the predicted phase spreading, also including the effect of particle losses.
We perform interferometry with one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates in a double well potential. Using dressed adiabatic potentials on an atomchip, we dynamically split BECs, imposing a macroscopic coherence on the system. Fluctuations of the order parameter are revealed as local shifts in the interference pattern and allow a quantization of the decoherence process with time. For the uncoupled system we ultimately recover individual phase fluctuating condensates, whereas finite tunnel coupling counteracts the decoherence and leads to an equilibrium characterized by a finite coherence length. Decoherence decay and equilibrium coherence lengths are used to determine temperature and coupling strength of the system.
Decoherence in simple experiments with Bose-Einstein condensates is of great importance for quantum engineering. We study a system of two colliding condensates in Fock and correlated states. During the collision some atoms are scattered out of the condensates, which leads to the decoherence. The quantum dynamics of the condensates is described by a master equation. In a simplified model we present analytical results. For more realistic conditions numerics is invoked. The depletion of the colliding condensates is accompanied by a decoherence.
In this review we discuss the dynamics of the phase of trapped Bose–Einstein condensates. In particular we consider the phenomena of phase decoherence (termed also as phase collapse, or diffusion), and phase revival in systems of interacting atoms. We analyse the dependence of the collapse and revival times on the trap potential, dimensionality of the gas, atom number fluctuations, and on the coherent dynamics of the condensate. We show that in a class of experimentally relevant systems, the collapse time is relatively short, and in some cases vanishes in the limit of a large number of atoms, implying that the trapped Bose gas cannot sustain a well-defined quantum phase, and that the phase memory is lost on a relatively short time scale. Furthermore, we calculate the relative atom number fluctuations or a model of two interacting condensates, and show that the fluctuations are generically sub-Poissonian.