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Oxford University Press eBooks

Spontaneous time‐symmetry breaking in a vibrating cold atom system

Myoung-Sun Heo, Y. Kim, Heung‐Ryoul Noh, Wonho Jhe

Published Jul 26, 2012• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

This chapter describes the experimental and theoretical studies of a spontaneous time-translation symmetry breaking transition in a non-equilibrium cold atom system. Such studies prepare two vibrating atomic clouds by periodically modulating the laser intensity in a magneto-optical trap (MOT). For a comparatively small total number of trapped atoms the clouds have equal populations, a consequence of fluctuation-induced inter-cloud transitions. As the total number of atoms is increased, spontaneous breaking of the discrete time-translation symmetry is observed with respect to the modulation period. The measured critical exponents and the frequency dispersion of the response show an ideal mean-field transition behaviour. The symmetry breaking is due to the modification of fluctuational dynamics by the interatomic interaction. The chapter provides a theoretical model based on the activation energy and master equation which explains the experimental results well. The enhancement of the fluctuation which cannot be described by the mean-field model, is also discussed.

DOI
10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199691388.003.0009

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This chapter describes the experimental and theoretical studies of a spontaneous time-translation symmetry breaking transition in a non-equilibrium cold atom system. Such studies prepare two vibrating atomic clouds by periodically modulating the laser intensity in a magneto-optical trap (MOT). For a comparatively small total number of trapped atoms the clouds have equal populations, a consequence of fluctuation-induced inter-cloud transitions. As the total number of atoms is increased, spontaneous breaking of the discrete time-translation symmetry is observed with respect to the modulation period. The measured critical exponents and the frequency dispersion of the response show an ideal mean-field transition behaviour. The symmetry breaking is due to the modification of fluctuational dynamics by the interatomic interaction. The chapter provides a theoretical model based on the activation energy and master equation which explains the experimental results well. The enhancement of the fluctuation which cannot be described by the mean-field model, is also discussed.
We show that an atomic system in a periodically modulated optical trap displays an ideal mean-field symmetry-breaking transition. The symmetry is broken with respect to time translation by the modulation period. We describe experimental observations and develop a full microscopic theory of the observed critical phenomena. The transition is explained as resulting from the interplay of the long-range interatomic interaction and nonequilibrium fluctuations in the strongly modulated system. The observations, including anomalous fluctuations in the symmetry broken phase, are fully described by the theory.
We realize an ideal mean-field transition of time-translation symmetry in a periodically-driven atomic system. The symmetry in steady-state oscillatory atomic motions spontaneously changes with the total number of atoms due to the interplay between inter-atomic interactions which originate from the attenuation effects in the trapping laser light and thermal fluctuations. A large separation of the time scales governing the transition suppresses the spatial dependence of the system dynamics, leading to a mean-field behavior even close to the transition point.
We have observed spontaneous symmetry breaking of the population of Brownian particles between two moving potentials in the spatiotemporally symmetric system. Cold atoms preferentially occupy one of the dynamic double-well potentials, produced in the parametrically driven dissipative magneto-optical trap far from equilibrium, above a critical number of atoms. We find that the population asymmetry, which may be interpreted as the biased Brownian motion, can be qualitatively described by the mean-field Ising-class phase transition. This in situ study may be useful for investigation of dynamic phase transition or temporal behavior of critical phenomena.
Abstract We report the first observation of motional excitation induced by parametric resonance of cold 133^{133}133Cs atoms in a dual-species magneto-optical trap (MOT) simultaneously trapping 133 Cs and 85 Rb atoms. By modulating the cooling laser’s intensity at approximately twice the resonant frequency of the trap, the atoms inside the trap separate into two atomic clouds, oscillating with a π phase difference due to the trap potential’s nonlinearity, resulting in a finite oscillation length. This behavior reflects general nonlinear dynamics and is described as a Hopf bifurcation or limit cycle motion. The measured oscillation amplitude was compared with theoretical calculations derived from simple Doppler cooling theory, changing modulation amplitude, magnetic field gradient, and saturation parameter. In addition, we investigate the noise-induced switching dynamics by measuring the temporal evolution of atomic populations localized in each of the two attractors under resonant symmetry lifting induced by an effective bias field. Notably, this dual-species MOT system is expected to provide a new platform for studying nonlinear and nonequilibrium dynamics between cold rubidium and cesium atomic ensembles. PACS numbers: 37.10.Vz, 37.10.De, 37.10.Gh
We experimentally demonstrate vibration phase reversal transition in a discrete time-translational symmetry broken cold atomic system by the application of a pulsed bias-field opposite to the existing phase of the symmetry broken vibrational state. The reversal transition depends on the strength hp and the duration Δt of the applied pulse. Consequently, we obtain a hp−Δt phase boundary with a divergent relaxation time τ due to the critical slowdown behavior. Interestingly, the dependence of the dynamic phase boundary and relaxation time on the noise-induced switching rate implies that the system is out of equilibrium, though not so in the Ising model of a spin system.
Abstract We study discrete time crystal (DTC) formation in a system driven periodically by an oscillating atomic mirror, consisting of two distinct ultracold atomic clouds in the presence of a gravitational field. The intra-species interactions are weak and attractive, while the inter-species interactions are infinitely strong and repulsive. The clouds are arranged in a one-dimensional stack, where the bottom cloud bounces on an oscillating atomic mirror, which effectively acts as a driving force for the upper cloud due to the infinite inter-species repulsion. Using a Jastrow-like variational ansatz for the many-body wavefunction, we show numerically that sufficiently strong attractive intra-species interactions drive each subsystem to spontaneously break discrete time translation symmetry, resulting in the formation of a cascading DTC evolving with a period different than the driving period. Since the bottom cloud serves as the effective periodic driving for the upper cloud, this leads to a cascade of spontaneous symmetry breaking. With increasing intra-species interactions, we first observe a pronounced effect of spontaneous time translation symmetry breaking in the upper cloud, followed by a similar effect in the lower atomic cloud.