Coherent control of ultracold collisions with chirped light: Direction matters

Journal Article · Tue May 15 04:00:00 EDT 2007 · Physical Review. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVA.75.051401· OSTI ID:20982441

Wright, M J; Pechkis, J A; Carini, J L; Gould, P L ^[1]; Kallush, S; Kosloff, R ^[2]

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1. Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269 (United States)
2. Department of Physical Chemistry and the Fritz Haber Research Center for Molecular Dynamics, The Hebrew University, 91094, Jerusalem (Israel)

We demonstrate the ability to coherently control ultracold atomic Rb collisions using frequency-chirped light on the nanosecond time scale. For certain center frequencies of the chirp, the rate of inelastic trap-loss collisions induced by negatively chirped light is dramatically suppressed compared to the case of a positive chirp. We attribute this to a fundamental asymmetry in the system: an excited wave packet moves inward on the attractive molecular potential. For a positive chirp, the resonance condition moves outward in time, while for a negative chirp, it moves inward, in the same direction as the excited wave packet; this allows multiple interactions between the wave packet and the light, enabling the wave packet to be returned coherently to the ground state. Classical and quantum calculations support this interpretation.

• OSTI ID: 20982441
• Journal Information: Physical Review. A, Journal Name: Physical Review. A Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 75; ISSN 1050-2947; ISSN PLRAAN
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
ASYMMETRY
COMPUTER CALCULATIONS
GROUND STATES
INTERACTIONS
LASER RADIATION
LOSSES
PHOTON-ATOM COLLISIONS
POTENTIALS
PULSES
RESONANCE
RUBIDIUM
TEMPERATURE RANGE 0000-0013 K
TRAPS
WAVE PACKETS