Fock space exploration by angle resolved transmission through quantum diffraction grating of cold atoms in an optical lattice

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how angle-resolved transmission spectra through an optical lattice can reveal detailed Fock space information of cold atom many-body states, offering a new probing method for quantum phases.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to explore the Fock space structure of cold atoms using angle-resolved transmission in optical cavities, linking optical spectra to quantum many-body states.

Findings

Transmission spectrum peaks vary with angle, reflecting atomic distribution.

Angle-resolved spectra encode information about quantum correlations.

Method applicable to current experimental setups.

Abstract

Light transmission or diffraction from different quantum phases of cold atoms in an optical lattice has recently come up as a useful tool to probe such ultra cold atomic systems. The periodic nature of the optical lattice potential closely resembles the structure of a diffraction grating in real space, but loaded with a strongly correlated quantum many body state which interacts with the incident electromagnetic wave, a feature that controls the nature of the light transmission or dispersion through such quantum medium. In this paper we show that as one varies the relative angle between the cavity mode and the optical lattice, the peak of the transmission spectrum through such cavity also changes reflecting the statistical distribution of the atoms in the illuminated sites. Consequently the angle resolved transmission spectrum of such quantum diffraction grating can provide a plethora of information about the Fock space structure of the many body quantum state of ultra cold atoms in such an optical cavity that can be explored in current state of the art experiments.