Cavity QED engineering of spin dynamics and squeezing in a spinor gas

TL;DR

This paper introduces a cavity QED-based method to engineer spin interactions and generate spin-nematic squeezing in spinor gases, enabling faster and more flexible exploration of many-body spin physics.

Contribution

It proposes a novel cavity-assisted Raman transition scheme to create effective atom-atom interactions in spinor gases, facilitating new experiments in spin dynamics and squeezing.

Findings

Can generate significant spin-nematic squeezing

Operates on shorter timescales than current methods

Uses cavity-assisted Raman transitions for engineering interactions

Abstract

We propose a method for engineering spin dynamics in ensembles of integer-spin atoms confined within a high-finesse optical cavity. Our proposal uses cavity-assisted Raman transitions to engineer a Dicke model for integer-spin atoms, which, in a dispersive limit, reduces to effective atom-atom interactions within the ensemble. This scheme offers a promising and flexible new avenue for the exploration of a wide range of spinor many-body physics. As an example of this, we present results showing that this method can be used to generate spin-nematic squeezing in an ensemble of spin-1 atoms. With realistic parameters the scheme should enable substantial squeezing on time scales much shorter than current experiments with spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates.