Efficient matter-wave lensing of ultracold atomic mixtures

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method using magic laser wavelengths for matter-wave lensing of ultracold atomic mixtures, ensuring identical trajectories and conserving the mixture's shape, thereby simplifying preparation and reducing the number of lensing pulses needed.

Contribution

The novel approach employs magic laser wavelengths to achieve identical lensing effects on multiple atomic species, improving efficiency and precision in ultracold gas experiments.

Findings

All atomic species follow identical trajectories with magic wavelengths.

The method conserves the mixture's shape during evolution.

Number of lensing pulses is halved compared to standard methods.

Abstract

Mixtures of ultracold quantum gases are at the heart of high-precision quantum tests of the weak equivalence principle, where extremely low expansion rates have to be reached with matter-wave lensing techniques. We propose to simplify this challenging atom-source preparation by employing magic laser wavelengths for the optical lensing potentials which guarantee that all atomic species follow identical trajectories and experience common expansion dynamics. In this way, the relative shape of the mixture is conserved during the entire evolution while cutting in half the number of required lensing pulses compared to standard approaches.