Microwave control of atomic motional states in a spin-dependent optical lattice

TL;DR

This paper explores microwave-based manipulation of atomic motional states in spin-dependent optical lattices, providing a detailed comparison with Raman methods, a simplified cooling model, and techniques for state engineering and measurement.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive analysis of microwave control in spin-dependent potentials, including a simplified cooling model and state measurement techniques, expanding the toolkit for atomic state manipulation.

Findings

Quantitative analysis of microwave sideband cooling performance.

Demonstration of microwave techniques to engineer motional Fock and coherent states.

Development of a measurement method for population distributions of motional states.

Abstract

Spin-dependent optical potentials allow us to use microwave radiation to manipulate the motional state of trapped neutral atoms (F\"orster et al. 2009 Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 233001). Here, we discuss this method in greater detail, comparing it to the widely-employed Raman sideband coupling method. We provide a simplified model for sideband cooling in a spin-dependent potential, and we discuss it in terms of the generalized Lamb-Dicke parameter. Using a master equation formalism, we present a quantitative analysis of the cooling performance for our experiment, which can be generalized to other experimental settings. We additionally use microwave sideband transitions to engineer motional Fock states and coherent states, and we devise a technique for measuring the population distribution of the prepared states.