Photo Processes with Atoms and Ions

S. F. Zhang, Bennaceur Najjari, Ma, X. +1 more

We consider photo ionization of an atom which, due to passing through a diffraction grating, is prepared in a multi-site state possessing a periodic space structure with alternating maxima and minima. It has been found that this process qualitatively differs from photo ionization of a 'normal' atom. In particular, the spectra of emitted electrons and recoil ions in this process display clear one- and two-particle interference effects. Moreover, there are also striking differences between the momentum distributions of these particles, which no longer mirror each other. The origin of all these features is discussed in detail. It is also shown that the information about the diffraction grating, which is encoded in the multi-site state of the atom, can be fully decoded by exploring the spectra of recoil ions whereas the photo-electron spectra contain this information only partially.

Владимир Сергеевич Лебедев, И. Л. Бейгман

Scott T. Sullivan, Wade G. Rellergert, Svetlana Kotochigova +3 more

The formation of (40)Ca(2)(+) molecular ions is observed in a hybrid (40)Ca magneto-optical and ion trap system. The molecular ion formation process is determined to be photo-associative ionization of ultracold (40)Ca atoms. A lower bound for the two-body rate constant is found to be beta ≥ 2 ± 1 × 10(-15) cm(3) Hz. Ab initio molecular potential curves are calculated for the neutral Ca(2) and ionic Ca(2)(+) molecules and used in a model that identifies the photo-associative ionization pathway. As this technique does not require a separate photo-association laser, it could find use as a simple, robust method for producing ultracold molecular ions.

H Shao, Mengting Wang, Mengyan Zeng +2 more

In this paper, we present a detailed method for rapidly and effectively loading a single 40 Ca + ion into a miniature linear Paul trap. Calcium atoms are generated by laser ablation, and the single ion is loaded and specific isotopes are selected by a two-step photo-ionization method. Compared to the traditional photo-ionization method in which atoms are typically emitted from a resistively heated oven, the advantages of laser ablation are that it can be precisely controlled, it can effectively avoid the problem of fluxed calcium deposition on the trap electrodes, and it restricts the generation of dark ions, which can influence atomic-precision spectroscopy measurements. With its short loading time, it is possible to load an ion in few seconds with the appropriate parameters. The technique of laser ablation has been applied to generate several species of atoms and ions at present, it will potentially benefit in the studies of optical frequency standards, quantum simulation and quantum information processing in an ultra-high vacuum condition and cryogenic system.

Krishna Rai Dastidar

We have studied the fidelity of spatial entanglement between dissociated atom and ion from two photon dissociation of hydrogen molecular ion H 2 + . Two processes for two photon dissociation of molecular ion have been considered (i) sequential two photon (STP) absorption and (ii) correlated two photon (CTP) absorption by the molecular ion. We compared the results for fidelity of spatial entanglement (FSE) between dissociated atom and ion for these two types of dissociation. In a previous study in our group [1] we have shown that when an atom interact with nonlocal mode of electromagnetic field (which has been derived field theoretically), simultaneous phase-correlated two pho1 ton absorption by the atom occurs within a very short time δt << ω , where ω is the laser frequency, and the rate of this correlated two photon absorption is linear in intensity. This will happen when the photon flux in the interaction region is high i.e. laser intensity is higher than 10 10 W/cm 2 . In this work we have extended this formalism to study the correlated two photon dissociation of molecular ion and to explore the effect of correlation between two simultaneous photo-absorption processes on the fidelity for spatial entanglement of dissociated atom and ion. Dependence of fidelity for spatial entanglement on the photon frequency has been studied for both the STP and CTP dissociation, to show that photon frequency can be used as control parameter to achieve maximum fidelity. Saturation of fidelity with the increase in time at which fidelity was calculated shows the robustness of the processes considered here. A scheme for detection of spatial entanglement between ion and atom has been suggested.