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Quantum Optics Journal of the European Optical Society Part B

Quantum diffraction of ultracold atoms by a standing wave laser

Weiping Zhang, Daniel F. Walls

Published Feb 1, 1993• 27 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A quantum field theory of the interaction of a light wave with ultracold atoms is presented. Both the light wave and the atoms are treated as quantum fields. As an example, the authors apply the quantum field theory to the diffraction of ultracold atoms by a standing wave laser.
DOI
10.1088/0954-8998/5/1/002

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A vector quantum field theory is developed to describe the interaction of an ultracold atomic ensemble with a laser field. The ultracold atomic ensemble is composed of either bosonic atoms or fermionic atoms. The photon exchanges between different ultracold atoms result in a long-range interatom interaction. Under appropriate conditions, such a many-body interaction leads to an effective ``Kerr-type'' nonlinearity of atomic waves. In terms of the nonlinearity, we construct a general formalism of nonlinear atom optics for an ultracold atomic beam. Applying the formalism to the diffraction of an ultracold atomic beam composed of bosonic atoms by a standing-wave laser field, we find that the many-body nonlinearity induces self-phase and cross-phase modulation of diffracted atomic waves. As a result, a standing-wave laser acts as a nonlinear atomic grating which diffracts atoms in the same way as a nonlinear periodic medium diffracts photons.
We study theoretically the diffraction of atoms by a standing-wave light field. Conceptually the text is divided into two parts. In the first part we deal with the coherent interaction only. We use a band theoretical approach to describe the laser-atom interaction, and to characterize two-beam resonances (Dopplerons and Bragg resonances). These two-beam resonances are major candidates to develop effective atom beam splitters. We study the interaction with classical light fields as well as with quantum fields. In the second part we take incoherent processes, i.e. spontaneous emission, into account and present a numerical scheme for the solution of the generalized optical Bloch equations. This scheme is based on the split-operator technique, and we use it to study numerically the influence of spontaneous emission on the diffraction process. We compare our results with recent experimental data, and investigate the impact of spontaneous emission on the performance of two-beam resonances.
We study the diffraction of quantum-degenerate fermionic atoms off of quantized light fields in an optical cavity. We compare the case of a linear cavity with standing-wave modes to that of a ring cavity with two counterpropagating traveling wave modes. It is found that the dynamics of the atoms strongly depends on the quantization procedure for the cavity field. For standing waves, no correlations develop between the cavity field and the atoms. Consequently, standing-wave Fock states yield the same results as a classical standing wave field while coherent states give rise to a collapse and revivals in the scattering of the atoms. In contrast, for traveling waves the scattering results in quantum entanglement of the radiation field and the atoms. This leads to a collapse and revival of the scattering probability even for Fock states. The Pauli exclusion principle manifests itself as an additional dephasing of the scattering probability.
We have developed the quantum theory of the interaction of ultracold atomic ensemble with the electromagnetic field of vacuum and laser photons. The main attention is paid to the consistent consideration of dynamical dipole-dipole interactions in the case of the second quantized matter. We show that the retardation effects significantly influence the behavior of atomic ensemble in the radiation field. We have derived the general system of equations, which can be used for the investigation of various linear and nonlinear phenomena in atom optics. As an example, we have considered the diffraction of ultracold atomic beam by the standard laser wave. We show that with the increase of the initial density of the intensities of diffractions modes decrease. We also show that the angles of diffraction for different modes depend on the density.
We derive the exact explicit analytical expressions of incident and diffracted atom lasers and their difference in phase from the Bragg diffraction of an atom laser from an optical standing wave in the presence of two-body atomic interactions. These expressions demonstrate that two-body atomic interactions may significantly affect the Bragg diffraction of an atom laser from an optical standing wave, and they provide a convenient basis for discussing and designing the future Bragg devices of strong atom lasers.