dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaLight scattering from ultracold atoms in optical lattices as an optical probe of quantum statistics
| Authors | Igor B. Mekhov, Christoph Maschler, Helmut Ritsch |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | quant-ph/0702193 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0702193 |
| DOI | 10.1103/PhysRevA.76.053618 |
| Journal | Phys. Rev. A 76, 053618 (2007) |
Abstract
We study off-resonant collective light scattering from ultracold atoms trapped in an optical lattice. Scattering from different atomic quantum states creates different quantum states of the scattered light, which can be distinguished by measurements of the spatial intensity distribution, quadrature variances, photon statistics, or spectral measurements. In particular, angle-resolved intensity measurements reflect global statistics of atoms (total number of radiating atoms) as well as local statistical quantities (single-site statistics even without an optical access to a single site) and pair correlations between different sites. As a striking example we consider scattering from transversally illuminated atoms into an optical cavity mode. For the Mott insulator state, similar to classical diffraction, the number of photons scattered into a cavity is zero due to destructive interference, while for the superfluid state it is nonzero and proportional to the number of atoms. Moreover, we demonstrate that light scattering into a standing-wave cavity has a nontrivial angle dependence, including the appearance of narrow features at angles, where classical diffraction predicts zero. The measurement procedure corresponds to the quantum non-demolition (QND) measurement of various atomic variables by observing light.
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"abstract": "We study off-resonant collective light scattering from ultracold atoms\ntrapped in an optical lattice. Scattering from different atomic quantum states\ncreates different quantum states of the scattered light, which can be\ndistinguished by measurements of the spatial intensity distribution, quadrature\nvariances, photon statistics, or spectral measurements. In particular,\nangle-resolved intensity measurements reflect global statistics of atoms (total\nnumber of radiating atoms) as well as local statistical quantities (single-site\nstatistics even without an optical access to a single site) and pair\ncorrelations between different sites. As a striking example we consider\nscattering from transversally illuminated atoms into an optical cavity mode.\nFor the Mott insulator state, similar to classical diffraction, the number of\nphotons scattered into a cavity is zero due to destructive interference, while\nfor the superfluid state it is nonzero and proportional to the number of atoms.\nMoreover, we demonstrate that light scattering into a standing-wave cavity has\na nontrivial angle dependence, including the appearance of narrow features at\nangles, where classical diffraction predicts zero. The measurement procedure\ncorresponds to the quantum non-demolition (QND) measurement of various atomic\nvariables by observing light.",
"arxiv_id": "quant-ph/0702193",
"authors": [
"Igor B. Mekhov",
"Christoph Maschler",
"Helmut Ritsch"
],
"categories": [
"quant-ph",
"physics.atom-ph",
"physics.optics"
],
"doi": "10.1103/PhysRevA.76.053618",
"journal_ref": "Phys. Rev. A 76, 053618 (2007)",
"title": "Light scattering from ultracold atoms in optical lattices as an optical probe of quantum statistics",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0702193"
},
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