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Physical Review A

Phase resolution for Bose-Einstein condensates

Jacob Dunningham, Keith R. Burnett

Published May 3, 2000• 18 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We discuss how the nature of the relative phase between two entangled condensates differs depending on whether the entanglement is established by measurements or by coupling. In the former case, the limit of the resulting phase resolution scales inversely with the square root of the number of atoms. This limit can be surpassed, however, when the condensates are entangled by coupling and can reach the fundamental Heisenberg limit where the phase resolution scales inversely with the number of atoms involved.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.61.065601

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We discuss how the nature of the relative phase between two entangled condensates differs depending on whether the entanglement is established by measurements or by coupling. In the former case, the limit of the resulting phase resolution scales inversely with the square root of the number of atoms. This limit can be surpassed, however, when the condensates are entangled by coupling and can reach the fundamental Heisenberg limit where the phase resolution scales inversely with the number of atoms involved.
The quantum phase of a Bose-Einstein condensate has long been a subject fraught with misunderstanding and confusion. In this thesis we provide a consis- tent description of this phenomenon and, in particular, discuss how phase may be defined, created, manipulated, and controlled. We begin by describing how it is possible to set up a reference condensate against which the phase of other condensates can be compared. This allows us to think of relative phases as if they were absolute and gives a clear and precise definition to 'the phase of a condensate'. A relative phase may also be established by coupling condensates and we show how this can be controlled. We then extend this model to explain how the phase along a chain of coupled condensates can lock naturally without the need for any measurements. The second part of the thesis deals primarily with the link between entangle- ment and phase. We show that, in general, the more entangled a state is, the better its phase resolution. This leads us to consider schemes by which maximally entangled states may be able to be created since these should give the best prac- tical advantages over their classical counterparts. We consider two such states: a number correlated pair of condensates and a Schrodinger cat state. Both schemes are shown to be remarkably robust to loss. A comparison of the merits of these two states, as the inputs to an interferom- eter, reveals very different behaviours. In particular, the number correlated state performs significantly better than the cat state in the presence of loss, which means that it might be useful in interferometry and frequency standard schemes where phase resolution is of the utmost importance. Finally, we propose a scheme for concentrating the entanglement between con- densates, which is an important step in quantum communication protocols. This, along with the ability to manipulate phase and entanglement, suggests that the future for condensates holds not only academic interest but great potential for practical applications.
We discuss a scheme for using entangled Bose-Einstein condensates to detect phase differences with a resolution better than the standard quantum limit. To date, schemes have shown that the enhancement in phase resolution gained by entangling condensates is lost when dissipation is present. Here we show how this can be overcome by using number correlated condensates, as have been produced recently in the laboratory. We also outline a scheme for measuring this phase that is not destroyed when the effects of finite detector efficiency are considered.
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We outline a procedure for Heisenberg-limited phase resolution between two Bose-Einstien condensates (BECs) defined as different hyperfine levels. The method involves first establishing a maximally entangled state using the ideas of nonlinear interferometry previously discussed in the optical domain [C. C. Gerry et al., Phys. Rev. A 66, 013804 (2002)]. In the case of the condensates, the nonlinear interactions are realized by the interatomic interactions within each condensate. Quarter cycle Raman pulses between hyperfine levels act as beam splitters. Parity measurements of one of the components of the BEC resolve the phase at the Heisenberg limit. We point out that parity measurements can be made by coupling the mode of interest with a third condensate where both components evolve under nonlinear interatomic interactions. After another Raman pulse, the components are populated according to parity. One need only determine which component is populated to determine the parity.
We study the limitations on the relative number squeezing between photons and atoms coupled out from a homogeneous Bose-Einstein condensate. We consider the coupling between the translational atomic states by two photon Bragg processes, with one of the photon modes involved in the Bragg process in a coherent state and the other initially unpopulated. We start with an interacting Bose condensate at zero temperature and compute the time evolution for the system. We study the squeezing, i.e., the variance of the occupation number difference between the second photon and the atomic center-of-mass mode. We discuss how collisions between the atoms and photon rescattering affect the degree of squeezing which may be reached in such experiments.
There has been much interest in developing phase estimation schemes which beat the so-called Heisenberg limit, i.e., for which the phase resolution scales better than 1/n, where n is a measure of resources such as the average photon number or the number of atomic qubits. In particular, a number of nonlinear schemes have been proposed for which the resolution appears to scale as 1/n^k or even exp(-n), based on optimising the quantum Cramer-Rao bound. Such schemes include the use of entangled coherent states. However, it may be shown that the average root mean square errors of the proposed schemes (averaged over any prior distribution of phase shifts), cannot beat the Heisenberg limit, and that simple estimation schemes based on entangled coherent states cannot scale better than 1/n^{1/4}. This paradox is related to the role of 'bias' in Cramer-Rao bounds, and is only partially ameliorated via iterative implementations of the proposed schemes. The results are based on new information-theoretic bounds for the average information gain and error of any phase estimation scheme, and generalise to estimates of shifts generated by any operator having discrete eigenvalues.