Quantum bright-solitons in Bose-Einstein condensates: from quantum reflection to quantum-enhanced interferometry

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• Christoph Weiss (JQC Durham-Newcastle)
• Friday 21 April 2017, 12:00-13:00
• Physics East 217.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Dr Giovanni Barontini.

In a recent experiment at Durham University with attractively interacting bosons, we observed quantum reflection off an attractive barrier [1]. The talk will start with modelling these results numerically [1]. Attractively interacting Bosons in quasi-one-dimensional waveguides form weakly bound molecules, bright solitons (Ref. [1] and references therein). Bright solitons were discovered more than 160 years ago in a water [2]: a water wave did not change its shape for many kilometres. Ultracold atoms with pairwise attractive interactions allow the creation of micro-versions of these bright solitons (which are distinct from the dark solitons investigated experimentally in Ref. [3]).

Quantum bright solitons provide an ideal system to study quantum effects in the realm between macroscopic world our physical intuition is based on and the microscopic world of single atoms. The talk will show how many-particle quantum superpositions (Schr ̈odinger-cat states) generated from quantum bright solitons [4, 5] can be used for quantum-enhanced interferometry [6].

∗ Christoph.Weiss@durham.ac.uk

[1]  A. L. Marchant, T. P. Billam, M. M. H. Yu, A. Rakonjac, J. L. Helm, J. Polo, C. Weiss, S. A. Gardiner, and S. L. Cornish,

“Quantum reflection of bright solitary matter waves from a narrow attractive potential,” Phys. Rev. A 93, 021604(R)

(2016).

[2]  J. S. Russell, “Report on waves,” In Report of the Fourteenth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of

Science 311–390 (John Murray) (1845).

[3]  S. Burger, K. Bongs, S. Dettmer, W. Ertmer, K. Sengstock, A. Sanpera, G. V. Shlyapnikov, and M. Lewenstein, “Dark

solitons in Bose-Einstein condensates,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 5198 (1999).

[4]  C. Weiss and Y. Castin, “Creation and detection of a mesoscopic gas in a nonlocal quantum superposition,” Phys. Rev.

Lett. 102, 010403 (2009).

[5]  B. Gertjerenken, T. P. Billam, L. Khaykovich, and C. Weiss, “Scattering bright solitons: Quantum versus mean-field

behavior,” Phys. Rev. A 86, 033608 (2012).

[6]  B. Gertjerenken, T. P. Wiles, and C. Weiss, “Progress towards quantum-enhanced interferometry with harmonically trapped

quantum matter-wave bright solitons,” Phys. Rev. A 94, 053638 (2016).

This talk is part of the Cold atoms series.

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• Bham Talks
• Cold Atoms
• Cold atoms
• Physics East 217
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