Coherent population trapping and dynamical instability in coupled atom-molecule condensates

Cold-atom double- coherent population trapping clock

F.-X. Esnault,1,2 E. Blanshan,1 E. N. Ivanov,3 R. E. Scholten,4 J. Kitching,1 and E. A. Donley1,* 1National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, Colorado 80305, USA 2Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales, 18 Avenue Edouard Belin, 31400 Toulouse, France 3School of Physics, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia 4School of Physics, The University o...

Coherent population trapping in Raman-pulse atom interferometry

A Cold-Atom Clock Based on Coherent Population Trapping

A compact cold-atom clock based on coherent population trapping is being developed. The clock aims to ultimately achieve a timing uncertainty of a few nanoseconds per day. Here we present an initial evaluation of the three main systematic frequency shifts – the first-order Doppler shift, the light shift, and the Zeeman shift. Planned steps to reduce the size of these shifts will also be presented.

Dynamical instability in kicked Bose-Einstein condensates

Bose-Einstein condensates subject to short pulses “kicks” from standing waves of light represent a nonlinear analog of the well-known chaos paradigm, the quantum kicked rotor. Previous studies of the onset of dynamical instability i.e., exponential proliferation of noncondensate particles suggested that the transition to instability might be associated with a transition to chaos. Here we conclu...

Coherent atomic oscillations and resonances between coupled Bose-Einstein condensates with time-dependent trapping potential

We study the quantum coherent tunneling between two Bose-Einstein condensates separated through an oscillating trap potential. The cases of slow and rapid varying in the time trap potential are considered. In the case of a slowly varying trap, we study the nonlinear resonances and chaos in the oscillations of the relative atomic population. Using the Melnikov function approach, we find the cond...