Fast manipulation of Bose-Einstein condensates with an atom chip

TL;DR

This paper presents a theoretical framework and numerical analysis for rapidly transporting Bose-Einstein condensates using atom chips, achieving precise control over large distances and minimal excitations for quantum sensing applications.

Contribution

It introduces a shortcut-to-adiabaticity protocol for fast, controlled transport of Bose-Einstein condensates over large distances with minimal excitations, validated by numerical simulations.

Findings

Successful implementation of fast transport over millimeter scales

Generation of quantum gases with picokelvin expansion speeds

Protocol robustness against experimental imperfections

Abstract

We present a detailed theoretical analysis of the implementation of shortcut-to-adiabaticity protocols for the fast transport of neutral atoms with atom chips. The objective is to engineer transport ramps with durations not exceeding a few hundred milliseconds to provide metrologically-relevant input states for an atomic sensor. Aided by numerical simulations of the classical and quantum dynamics, we study the behavior of a Bose-Einstein condensate in an atom chip setup with realistic anharmonic trapping. We detail the implementation of fast and controlled transports over large distances of several millimeters, i.e. distances 1000 times larger than the size of the atomic cloud. A subsequent optimized release and collimation step demonstrates the capability of our transport method to generate ensembles of quantum gases with expansion speeds in the picokelvin regime. The performance of this procedure is analyzed in terms of collective excitations reflected in residual center of mass and size oscillations of the condensate. We further evaluate the robustness of the protocol against experimental imperfections.