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Motional and Spin Dynamics of Individual Neutral Impurities in an Ultracold Gas

Felix Schmidt, Daniel Mayer, Tobias Lausch, Daniel Adam, Quentin Bouton, Michael Hohmann, Farina Kindermann, Jennifer Koch, Jens Nettersheim, Artur Widera

Published Apr 29, 2019• 5 citations

Abstract

Recent studies on the dynamics of single, neutral impurities immersed in an ultracold gas are reviewed. This paradigmatic model system is realized by the controlled doping of single Caesium atoms into an ultracold Rubidium gas. Interaction between the impurity and the gas in both the motional and internal degrees of freedom is studied for a broad range of bath temperatures in the thermal and quantum‐degenerate regime. Tracing single‐atom diffusion it is found that, even for a granular bath, where the assumption of a continuous medium is not fulfilled, a modified Langevin equation yields excellent predictions for tracer diffusion. Numerical modeling of impurity dynamics in a three‐dimensional superfluid bath shows the emergence of a prethermalized state for intermediate times due to the existence of a superfluid critical momentum, while for lower dimensions the effect of thermal phonons dominates and obstructs the formation of such nonthermal states. Finally, unleashing the quasi‐spin degree of freedom, the authors observe and control spin‐exchange dynamics between individual impurities and the bath. Moreover, a regime of sympathetic impurity cooling is realized, where the internal‐state coherence of the impurity is preserved. In the future, control over the motional and spin‐degree of freedom will enable using individual impurities as thermalized, localized, minimally invasive quantum probes for a quantum fluid.

DOI: 10.1002/pssb.201800710

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Recent studies on the dynamics of single, neutral impurities immersed in an ultracold gas are reviewed. This paradigmatic model system is realized by the controlled doping of single Caesium atoms into an ultracold Rubidium gas. Interaction between the impurity and the gas in both the motional and internal degrees of freedom is studied for a broad range of bath temperatures in the thermal and quantum‐degenerate regime. Tracing single‐atom diffusion it is found that, even for a granular bath, where the assumption of a continuous medium is not fulfilled, a modified Langevin equation yields excellent predictions for tracer diffusion. Numerical modeling of impurity dynamics in a three‐dimensional superfluid bath shows the emergence of a prethermalized state for intermediate times due to the existence of a superfluid critical momentum, while for lower dimensions the effect of thermal phonons dominates and obstructs the formation of such nonthermal states. Finally, unleashing the quasi‐spin degree of freedom, the authors observe and control spin‐exchange dynamics between individual impurities and the bath. Moreover, a regime of sympathetic impurity cooling is realized, where the internal‐state coherence of the impurity is preserved. In the future, control over the motional and spin‐degree of freedom will enable using individual impurities as thermalized, localized, minimally invasive quantum probes for a quantum fluid.

We report on spin dynamics of individual, localized neutral impurities immersed in a Bose-Einstein condensate. Single cesium atoms are transported into a cloud of rubidium atoms and thermalize with the bath, and the ensuing spin exchange between localized impurities with quasispin F_{i}=3 and bath atoms with F_{b}=1 is resolved. Comparing our data to numerical simulations of spin dynamics, we find that, for gas densities in the Bose-Einstein condensate regime, the dynamics is dominated by the condensed fraction of the cloud. We spatially resolve the density overlap of impurities and gas by the spin population of impurities. Finally, we trace the coherence of impurities prepared in a coherent superposition of internal states when coupled to a gas of different densities. For our choice of states, we show that, despite high bath densities and, thus, fast thermalization rates, the impurity coherence is not affected by the bath, realizing a regime of sympathetic cooling while maintaining internal state coherence. Our work paves the way toward the nondestructive probing of quantum many-body systems via localized impurities.

We report on controlled doping of an ultracold Rb gas with single neutral Cs impurity atoms. Elastic two-body collisions lead to a rapid thermalization of the impurity inside the Rb gas, representing the first realization of an ultracold gas doped with a precisely known number of impurity atoms interacting via s-wave collisions. Inelastic interactions are restricted to a single three-body recombination channel in a highly controlled and pure setting, which allows us to determine the Rb-Rb-Cs three-body loss rate with unprecedented precision. Our results pave the way for a coherently interacting hybrid system of individually controllable impurities in a quantum many-body system.

Quantum probes are atomic sized devices mapping information of their environment to quantum-mechanical states. By improving measurements and at the same time minimizing perturbation of the environment, they form a central asset for quantum technologies. We realize spin-based quantum probes by immersing individual Cs atoms into an ultracold Rb bath. Controlling inelastic spin-exchange processes between the probe and bath allows us to map motional and thermal information onto quantum-spin states. We show that the steady-state spin population is well suited for absolute thermometry, reducing temperature measurements to detection of quantum-spin distributions. Moreover, we find that the information gain per inelastic collision can be maximized by accessing the nonequilibrium spin dynamic. Keeping the motional degree of freedom thermalized, individual spin-exchange collisions yield information about the gas quantum by quantum. We find that the sensitivity of this nonequilibrium quantum probing effectively beats the steady-state Cramér-Rao limit by almost an order of magnitude, while reducing the perturbation of the bath to only three quanta of angular momentum. Our work paves the way for local probing of quantum systems at the Heisenberg limit, and moreover, for optimizing measurement strategies via control of nonequilibrium dynamics. © 2020 authors. Published by the American Physical Society.

Abstract We report on the experimental doping of a 87 Rubidium (Rb) Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) with individual neutral 133 Cesium (Cs) atoms. We discuss the experimental tools and procedures to facilitate Cs-Rb interaction. First, we use degenerate Raman side-band cooling of the impurities to enhance the immersion efficiency for the impurity in the quantum gas. We identify the immersed fraction of Cs impurities from the thermalization of Cs atoms upon impinging on a BEC, where elastic collisions lead to a localization of Cs atoms in the Rb cloud. Second, further enhancement of the immersion probability is obtained by localizing the Cs atoms in a species-selective optical lattice and a subsequent transport into the Rb cloud. Here, impurity-BEC interaction is monitored by position and time-resolved three-body loss of Cs impurities immersed into the BEC. This combination of experimental methods allows for the controlled doping of a BEC with neutral impurity atoms, paving the way to impurity aided probing and coherent impurity-quantum bath interaction.

The frictionless motion of an object through a fluid medium is commonly viewed as a hallmark of superfluidity. According to Landau, kinematic constraints prohibit superfluid behavior in one-dimensional (1D) bosonic systems. Here, using ultracold atoms, we show how a microscopic impurity can propagate through a strongly interacting 1D Bose gas without any friction, at odds with conventional expectations. We inject the impurity with initial velocities ranging from the subsonic to supersonic regime, and subsequently track its dynamics. For supersonic initial velocities, we observe the formation of a shock wave and a remarkably fast relaxation to a stationary regime, on a time scale that increases with decreasing impurity velocity. After reaching the stationary state, the impurity continues its motion through the system with a finite velocity. Our findings demonstrate how quantum effects can conspire to eliminate dissipation of a microscopic object immersed in a quantum fluid, thereby bringing novel insights into the propagation of matter and information in the quantum realm.

Quantum probes are atomic-sized devices mapping information of their environment to quantum mechanical states. By improving measurements and at the same time minimizing perturbation of the environment, they form a central asset for quantum technologies. We realize spin-based quantum probes by immersing individual Cs atoms into an ultracold Rb bath. Controlling inelastic spin-exchange processes between probe and bath allows mapping motional and thermal information onto quantum-spin states. We show that the steady-state spin-population is well suited for absolute thermometry, reducing temperature measurements to detection of quantum spin distributions. Moreover, we find that the information gain per inelastic collision can be maximized by accessing the nonequilibrium spin dynamic. The sensitivity of nonequilibrium quantum probing effectively beats the steady-state Cramér Rao limit of quantum probing by almost an order of magnitude, while reducing the perturbation of the bath to only three quanta of angular momentum. Our work paves the way for local probing of quantum systems at the Heisenberg limit, and moreover for optimizing measurement strategies via control of nonequilibrium dynamics.