Coherence Times of Bose-Einstein Condensates beyond the Shot-Noise Limit via Superfluid Shielding

Burton, William Cody; Kennedy, Colin J.; Chung, Woo Chang; Vadia, Samarth; Chen, Wenlan and Ketterle, Wolfgang (2016): Coherence Times of Bose-Einstein Condensates beyond the Shot-Noise Limit via Superfluid Shielding. In: Physical Review Letters, Vol. 117, No. 27, 275301

Abstract

We demonstrate a new way to extend the coherence time of separated Bose-Einstein condensates that involves immersion into a superfluid bath. When both the system and the bath have similar scattering lengths, immersion in a superfluid bath cancels out inhomogeneous potentials either imposed by external fields or inherent in density fluctuations due to atomic shot noise. This effect, which we call superfluid shielding, allows for coherence lifetimes beyond the projection noise limit. We probe the coherence between separated condensates in different sites of an optical lattice by monitoring the contrast and decay of Bloch oscillations. Our technique demonstrates a new way that interactions can improve the performance of quantum devices.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Faculties: Physics
• Subjects: 500 Science > 530 Physics
• ISSN: 0031-9007
• Language: English