Spatial Landau-Zener-St\"{u}ckelberg interference in spinor Bose-Einstein condensates

TL;DR

This paper explores spatial Landau-Zener-Stückelberg interference in spinor Bose-Einstein condensates caused by inhomogeneous magnetic fields, revealing interference fringes in density profiles and potential applications in quantum control.

Contribution

It demonstrates the occurrence of space-domain Landau-Zener-Stückelberg interference in spinor BECs due to magnetic inhomogeneity, a novel phenomenon linking spatial inhomogeneity with quantum interference.

Findings

Interference fringes appear in all spin component density profiles.

Inhomogeneous magnetic fields induce observable spatial interference patterns.

Dipolar interactions can also generate similar interference effects.

Abstract

We investigate the St\"{u}ckelberg oscillations of a spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate subject to a spatially inhomogeneous transverse magnetic field and a periodic longitudinal field. We show that the time-domain St\"{u}ckelberg oscillations result in interference fringes in the density profiles of all spin components due to the spatial inhomogeneity of the transverse field. This phenomenon represents the Landau-Zener-St\"{u}ckelberg interference in the space-domain. Since the magnetic dipole-dipole interaction between spin-1 atoms induces an inhomogeneous effective magnetic field, interference fringes also appear if a dipolar spinor condensate is driven periodically. We also point out some potential applications of this spatial Landau-Zener-St\"{u}kelberg interference.