Microwave control of coupling parameters in spinor alkali condensates

TL;DR

This paper introduces a radio frequency magnetic pulse protocol to control interaction parameters in spinor alkali condensates, enabling exploration of various phase transitions while maintaining spin rotational symmetry.

Contribution

The proposed method allows tuning of scattering amplitudes in alkali atoms without breaking spin symmetry, expanding the experimental capabilities beyond Feshbach resonances.

Findings

Achieves significant variation in effective coupling constants for $^{41}$K and $^{7}$Li.

Enables exploration of phase transitions between different symmetry-broken phases.

Maintains global rotational symmetry during tuning process.

Abstract

We propose a protocol which utilises radio frequency magnetic pulses in order to tune the effective two-particle scattering amplitudes for alkali atoms in the $F=1$ hyperfine ground state. Unlike the Feshbach resonance method, the proposed protocol preserves with controllable accuracy the global rotational symmetry in the spin space offering access to a broad region of the phase diagram of the rotationally-symmetric spinor Bose condensate. Examples of $^{41}$K and $^{7}$Li are considered and it is shown that for these atoms sufficient variation in the effective coupling constants can be achieved in order to explore phase transitions between different symmetry-broken phases of the condensate.