Precise manipulation of a Bose-Einstein condensate using Bragg interactions

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates highly precise manipulation of Bose-Einstein condensates using off-resonant light pulses, achieving high fidelity beam-splitting and reflection operations consistent with theoretical predictions.

Contribution

It provides experimental validation of optical manipulation techniques for ultracold atoms with high fidelity and explores their dependence on experimental parameters.

Findings

Fidelities up to 0.99 for beam splitting and 0.98 for reflection.

Achieved splitting operations of up to third order.

Good agreement between experimental results and theoretical estimates.

Abstract

The use of off-resonant standing light waves to manipulate ultracold atoms is investigated. Previous work has illustrated that optical pulses can provide efficient beam-splitting and reflection operations for atomic wave packets. The performance of these operations is characterized experimentally using Bose-Einstein condensates confined in a weak magnetic trap. Under optimum conditions, fidelities of up to 0.99 for beam splitting and 0.98 for reflection are observed, and splitting operations of up to third order are achieved. The dependence of the operations on light intensity and atomic velocity is measured and found to agree well with theoretical estimates.