Three-level atom optics via the tunneling interaction

Abstract

Three-level atom optics is introduced as a simple, efficient, and robust method to coherently manipulate and transport neutral atoms. The tunneling interaction among three trapped states allows us to realize the spatial analog of the stimulated Raman adiabatic passage, coherent population trapping, and electromagnetically induced transparency techniques and offers a wide range of possible applications. We investigate an implementation in optical microtrap arrays and show that under realistic parameters the coherent manipulation and transfer of neutral atoms among dipole traps could be realized in the millisecond range.

Coherent adiabatic transport of atoms in radio-frequency traps

“…Recently, it has been shown that similar techniques can, in principle, be used to control the quantized center-of-mass state of single particles [4][5][6]. This atom-optical analog has been dubbed coherent transport by adiabatic passage (CTAP) and while the possibility of observing this process has received significant attention [7,8], the conditions that have to be fulfilled for its observation are currently hard to achieve experimentally.…”

“…However, since the strength of the tunnel coupling is usually adjusted by changing the distance between the microtraps, which leads to significant overlap of the neighboring trapping potentials, the eigenstates become time dependent. Several solutions to the problem have been suggested, all involving significant experimental resources or restrictions on the parameter space [4,6,7]. A similar process coupling classical light between optical waveguides has recently been experimentally demonstrated [9][10][11].…”

Atomtronics with holes: Coherent transport of an empty site in a triple-well potential

“…Our first goal will consist of developing an efficient and robust method to adiabatically transport holes between the two extreme traps of the triple-well potential, by applying the matter-wave analog [10] of the quantum optical STIRAP technique [11]. Thus, let us consider three in-line traps with one empty site and two identical fermions, each one in the vibrational ground state of the two remaining traps as shown in Fig.…”

“…For truncated harmonic traps, see Eq. (2), the J i tunneling rate of a single atom between the ground states of two adjacent traps i and i + 1 is given by [10] …”

“…Recently, we introduced a set of coherent tools [10], named three-level atom optics (TLAO) techniques, to efficiently transport matter waves between the two extreme traps of a triple-well potential via the tunneling interaction. This adiabatic transport process is the matter-wave analog of the very well-known quantum optical stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) technique [11], and it is based on adiabatically following an energy eigenstate of the system, the so-called spatial dark state, that, ideally, only involves the vibrational ground states of the two extreme wells.…”