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arXiv:quant-ph/0701080

Manipulating Quantum States of Molecules Created via Photoassociation of Bose-Einstein Condensates

Xiaoting Zhou, Xiong-Jun Liu, Hui Jing, Lai, C. H., Changhun Oh

Published Jan 14, 2007• 0 citations
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Abstract

We show the quantum state transfer technique in two-color photoassociation (PA) of a Bose-Einstein condensate, where a quantized field is used to couple the free-bound transition from atom state to excited molecular state. Under the weak excitation condition, we find that quantum states of the quantized field can be transferred to the created molecular condensate. The feasibility of this technique is confirmed by considering the atomic and molecular decays discovered in the current PA experiments. The present results allow us to manipulate quantum states of molecules in the photoassociation of a Bose-Einstein condensate.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.quant-ph/0701080

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We show the quantum state transfer technique in two-color photoassociation (PA) of a Bose-Einstein condensate, where a quantized field is used to couple the free-bound transition from atom state to excited molecular state. Under the weak excitation condition, we find that quantum states of the quantized field can be transferred to the created molecular condensate. The feasibility of this technique is confirmed by considering the atomic and molecular decays discovered in the current PA experiments. The present results allow us to manipulate quantum states of molecules in the photoassociation of a Bose-Einstein condensate.
We consider the process of photoassociation (PA) that occurs when a pair of colliding atoms interacts with a photon, thereby making a transition from the two-atom continuum to a bound molecular state. Such free-bound transitions are described by quantizing the molecule's dissociation continuum, and coupling each of these quasicontinuum (QC) levels to a similarly discrete molecular level. The correct free-atom results are recovered no later than at the end of a given calculation by taking the limit as the QC spacing tends to zero. From the quasicontinuum model, we are led to adapt the few-level and second-quantization methods of photon optics to analyze free-bound transitions. In particular, we establish the PA density parameter as nearly identical to the phase-space parameter as a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), illustrate the near-unit efficiency of one- and two-color photoassociation of a BEC, and develop coherent atom-molecule transitions as the matter optics version of second-harmonic generated photons. ^
We demonstrate complete quantum state transfer of an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate to molecular condensate, mediated by solitonic excitations in a cigar shaped mean-field geometry. Starting with a localized solitonic atomic condensate, we show compatible gray solitonic configuration in the molecular condensate, which results in complete atom-molecule conversion. The effect of inter and intra-species interactions on the formation of molecular condensate is explicated in the presence of Raman Photoassociation. It is found that photoassociation plays a crucial role in the coherent atom-molecule conversion as well as in the soliton dynamics. The gray soliton dispersion reveals bistable behaviour, showing a re-entrant phase in a physically accessible parametric domain.
We consider two-color heteronuclear photoassociation of a dual-species Bose-Einstein condensate into a Bose-Einstein condensate of dipolar molecules in the J=1J=1J=1 vibronic ground state, where a free-ground laser couples atoms directly to the ground state and a free-bound laser couples the atoms to an electronically excited state. This problem raises an interest because heteronuclear photoassociation from atoms to near-ground-state molecules is limited by the small size of the target state. Nevertheless, the addition of the electronically excited state creates a second pathway for creating molecules in the vibronic ground state, leading to quantum interference between direct photoassociation and photoassociation via the excited molecular state, as well as a dispersivelike shift of the free-ground resonance position. Using LiNa as an example, these results are shown to depend on the detuning and intensity of the free-bound laser, as well as the semiclassical size of both molecular states. Whereas strong enhancement enables saturation of the free-ground transition, coherent conversion from a two-species condensate of atoms to a condensate of dipolar molecules in the vibronic ground state is only possible for a limited range of free-bound detunings near resonance.
We study coherent photoassociation, phenomena analogous to coherent optical transients in few-level systems, which may take place in photoassociation of an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate but not in a nondegenerate gas. We develop a second-quantized Hamiltonian to describe photoassociation, and apply the Hamiltonian both in the momentum representation and in the position representation (field theory). The solution of the two-mode problem, including only one mode each for the atomic and molecular condensates, displays analogs of Rabi oscillations and rapid adiabatic passage. A classical version of the field theory for atoms and molecules is used to demonstrate that, in the presence of photoassociating light, a joint atom-molecule condensate is unstable against the growth of density fluctuations. Experimental complications, including spontaneous emission and unwanted ``rogue'' photodissociation from a photoassociated molecule, are analyzed. A two-color Raman scheme is studied as a method to set up an effective two-mode scheme with reduced spontaneous-emission losses. We discuss photoassociation rates and photoassociation Rabi frequencies for high-lying vibrational states in alkali dimers both on the basis of molecular-structure calculations, and by comparing with an experiment [Wynar et al., Science 287, 1016 (2000)].
We analyze coherent two-color photoassociation of a Bose-Einstein condensate, focusing on stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) in free-bound-bound transitions from atoms to molecules. This problem raises an interest because STIRAP has been predicted to be absent in the nondegenerate case [Javanainen and Mackie, Phys. Rev. A 58, R789 (1998)]. Nevertheless, we find that Bose stimulation enhances the free-bound dipole matrix element for an atomic condensate, and photoassociative STIRAP turns out to be a viable mechanism for converting an atomic condensate to a molecular condensate with near-unit efficiency.