Observation and Uses of Position-Space Bloch Oscillations in an Ultracold Gas

Abstract

We report the observation and characterization of position-space Bloch oscillations using cold atoms in a tilted optical lattice. While momentum-space Bloch oscillations are a common feature of optical lattice experiments, the real-space center-of-mass dynamics are typically unresolvable. In a regime of rapid tunneling and low force, we observe real-space Bloch oscillation amplitudes of hundreds of lattice sites, in both ground and excited bands. We demonstrate two unique capabilities enabled by tracking of Bloch dynamics in position space: measurement of the full position-momentum phase-space evolution during a Bloch cycle, and direct imaging of the lattice band structure. These techniques, along with the ability to exert long-distance coherent control of quantum gases without modulation, may open up new possibilities for quantum control and metrology.

Engineering the Floquet spectrum of superconducting multiterminal quantum dots

“…Indeed, the spectral gap eEa 0 between two consecutive energy levels in such ladder is equal to hν B , where ν B = 1/∆t is the frequency associated to Bloch oscillations. This has been observed in ultra-cold atoms [53][54][55] . We notice the properties of Bloch oscillations have already been used in Coulomb blockaded Josephson junction circuits for low noise amplification 56,57 .…”

Many-Body Quantum Dynamics of Initially Trapped Systems due to a Stark Potential: Thermalization versus Bloch Oscillations

“…Long after its prediction, Bloch oscillations were observed in semiconductor super-lattices [14,15], in cold atoms [16][17][18][19], and in periodic photonic structures [20][21][22]. In cold atom experiments, Bloch oscillations have by now been observed many times [2,[16][17][18][19][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40], and are used widely as a measurement tool, e.g., for metrological applications [26,28,32,34] to detect Dirac points in optical lattices [33], etc. Some experiments have also explored the effect of inter-particle interactions on Bloch oscillations [23,25,[29][30][31]36].…”

Simultaneous accurate determination of both gravity and its vertical gradient

“…Atom interferometry techniques based on the manipulation of atomic wavepackets with light beamsplitters have led to the development of highly sensitive and accurate inertial sensors, accelerometers and gyrometers, whose performances compete favorably with, and in many cases surpass, state of the art conventional sensors [1][2][3][4][5][6]. They find today applications in various fields, spanning from fundamental science and metrology to geophysics, exploration, monitoring, navigation and civil engineering [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. The maturity of this technology has reached the level of industrial transfer and first commercial sensors are now available [17].…”