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Australian Journal of Physics

Nonlinear Dynamics in Atom Optics

Wenyu Chen, Sigurd Dyrting, Gerard J Milburn

Published Aug 1, 1996• 9 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In this paper theoretical work on classical and quantum nonlinear dynamics of cold atoms is reported. The basic concepts in nonlinear dynamics are reviewed and then applied to the motion of atoms in time-dependent standing waves and to the atomic bouncer. We describe the quantum dynamics for the cases of regular and chaotic classical dynamics. The effect of spontaneous emission and external noise is also discussed.

DOI
10.1071/ph960777

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In this paper theoretical work on classical and quantum nonlinear dynamics of cold atoms is reported. The basic concepts in nonlinear dynamics are reviewed and then applied to the motion of atoms in time-dependent standing waves and to the atomic bouncer. We describe the quantum dynamics for the cases of regular and chaotic classical dynamics. The effect of spontaneous emission and external noise is also discussed.
It is proposed that the atomic optical system of an ytterbium atom in a time-dependent optical standing wave be used to experimentally observe quantum nonlinear motion and, in particular, predict the quantum behavior of a system whose classical analog ranges from completely integrable, to near integrable, and finally to globally chaotic motion. We extend previous treatments to include spontaneous emission. From the study of theoretical models of dissipative quantum nonlinear motion, it is known that even small amounts of dissipation can significantly alter the quantum dynamics through the destruction of coherences. In this paper we present some theoretical and numerical results of the effect of spontaneous emission on nonlinear nonintegrable dynamics in atomic optics. When spontaneous emission is included, we show that the nature of the light-atom interaction introduces interesting features not usually investigated in models of dissipative quantum nonlinear dynamics. These include a potential that depends on the atom's internal state, a band structure, and a time-dependent dissipative process.
Cold atoms in optical potentials provide an ideal test bed to explore quantum nonlinear dynamics. Atoms are prepared in a magneto-optic trap or as a dilute Bose–Einstein condensate and subjected to a far detuned optical standing wave that is modulated. They exhibit a wide range of dynamics, some of which can be explained by classical theory while other aspects show the underlying quantum nature of the system. The atoms have a mixed phase space containing regions of regular motion which appear as distinct peaks in the atomic momentum distribution embedded in a sea of chaos. The action of the atoms is of the order of Planck’s constant, making quantum effects significant. This tutorial presents a detailed description of experiments measuring the evolution of atoms in time-dependent optical potentials. Experimental methods are developed providing means for the observation and selective loading of regions of regular motion. The dependence of the atomic dynamics on the system parameters is explored and distinct changes in the atomic momentum distribution are observed which are explained by the applicable quantum and classical theory. The observation of a bifurcation sequence is reported and explained using classical perturbation theory. Experimental methods for the accurate control of the momentum of an ensemble of atoms are developed. They use phase space resonances and chaotic transients providing novel ensemble atomic beamsplitters. The divergence between quantum and classical nonlinear dynamics is manifest in the experimental observation of dynamical tunnelling. It involves no potential barrier. However a constant of motion other than energy still forbids classically this quantum allowed motion. Atoms coherently tunnel back and forth between their initial state of oscillatory motion and the state 180 ° out of phase with the initial state.
In this thesis, I study the classical and quantum nonlinear dynamics of two-level atoms in a donut beam, an evanescent beam guiding atoms in a hollow fiber and atoms in an optical standing wave of high-finesse cavity. The laser fields are far-off-resonant beams. The two dimensional classical nonlinear dynamics of atoms in a donut beam and an evanescent-wave in hollow fiber are investigated. Chaotic dynamics exists for classic dynamics of cold atoms in a donut beam and hollow fiber, when the intensity of the beam is periodically modulated. The atoms will accumulate on several annular regions when the system enters a regime of global chaos. The two dimensional quantum nonlinear dynamics of an atom in hollow fiber are investigated. The quantum system of single atom dynamics in cavity QED is investigated. For continuous observation of the nonlinear dynamics of single atom trapped in a high-finesse cavity by a standing wave with intensity modulation, the conditional Hilbert space dynamics of this system, subject to measurement induced perturbations, depends strongly on whether the corresponding classical dynamics is regular or chaotic. The influence of decoherence due to homodyne measurement is investigated. The evolution of Wigner function shows that the higher order quantum correction terms will play an important role together with potential nonlinearity and measurement strength. The decoherence will result in a remarkable improvement for classical-quantum correspondence.
Abstract This paper is a review article on some aspects of quantum–classical correspondence in chaotic dynamics of cold atoms interacting with a standing-wave laser field forming an optical lattice. The problem is treated from both (semi)classical and quantum points of view. In both approaches, the interaction of an atomic electic dipole with the laser field is treated quantum mechanically. Translational motion is described, at first, classically (atoms are considered to be point-like objects) and then quantum mechanically as a propagation of matter waves. Semiclassical equations of motion are shown to be chaotic in the sense of classical dynamical chaos. Point-like atoms in an absolutely deterministic and rigid optical lattice can move in a random-like manner demonstrating a chaotic walking with typical features of classical chaos. This behavior is explained by random-like ‘jumps’ of one of the atomic internal variable when atoms cross nodes of the standing wave and occurs in a specific range of the atom-field detuning. When treating atoms as matter waves, we show that they can make nonadiabatic transitions when crossing the standing-wave nodes. The point is that atomic wave packets split at each node in the same range of the atom-field detuning where the classical chaos occurs. The key point is that the squared amplitude of those semiclassical ‘jumps’ equal to the quantum Landau–Zener parameter which defines the probability of nonadiabatic transitions at the nodes. Nonadiabatic atomic wave packets are much more complicated compared to adiabatic ones and may be called chaotic in this sense. A few possible experiments to observe some manifestations of classical and quantum chaos with cold atoms in horizontal and vertical optical lattices are proposed and discussed.
Dynamics of the quantum system that consists of a cold atom in a modulated standing wave of light is analyzed using the time-dependent variational principle formulation based on squeezed coherent states. A group of ordinary differential equations describing evolution of two pairs of canonically conjugate variables (q(t), p(t); G(t), Π(t)) are derived where G(t) and Π(t) describe the quantum fluctuations of the system. It has been shown that a transition from the regular motion to the chaotic motion in G(t), Π(t) phase space. Quantum system seems to be capable to show the classical-like chaotic structure.
We treat semiclassical nonlinear dynamics of a two-level atom in the strong standing-wave field created in a high-quality cavity and in a free space with the help of two counterpropagating laser beams. First of all, we consider the dynamics of the strongly coupled atom-field system in an ideal cavity without any losses and discuss briefly nonlinear dynamical effects of random walking of an atom in a fully deterministic standing wave and Hamiltonian dynamical fractals. Then we study how these effects change in a free space when we take into account relaxation and external pumping of the standing wave. We discuss briefly new dissipative effects of synchronization between electronic and mechanical degrees of freedom of atoms, limit cycles of different periods and their bifurcations, and strange atomic attractors. Finally, we treat spontaneous relaxation as a random events in the equations of motion and study what happens with atomic fractality and limit cycles. It is shown that a self-similar structure of the scattering function (at least, on a few first levels) is conserved in the presence of spontaneous jumps. As to limit cycles, we could not resolve limit cycles of different period, but the fact of synchronization of internal and external atomic degrees of freedom is strictly established in the system with spontaneous jumps.