Effects of Interaction in Bose-Einstein Condensatesby

Kaiwen Xu
Submitted to the Department of Physics
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree ofDoctor of Philosophy
at theMASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
June 2006
c Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2006. All rights reserved.

Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Department of Physics
March 10, 2006

Certified by . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Wolfgang Ketterle
John D. MacAurthur Professor of Physics
Thesis Supervisor

Accepted by . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Thomas J. Greytak
Professor of Physics, Associate Department Head for EducationEffects of Interaction in Bose-Einstein Condensatesby
Kaiwen Xu
Submitted to the Department of Physics
on March 10, 2006, in partial fulfillment of therequirements for the degree ofDoctor of Philosophy

Abstract
This thesis discusses a series of studies that investigate the effects of interaction –essentially the s-wave scattering – in the various properties of Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC).
The phonon wavefunction in a BEC was measured using Bragg spectroscopy andcompared with the well-known Bogoliubov theory. Phonons were first excited in a
BEC of 3 × 107 condensed 23 Na atoms via small-angle two-photon Bragg scattering.
Large angle Bragg scattering was then used to probe the momentum distribution.
We found reasonable agreement with the theory.
With the same technique of Bragg diffraction, we studied the four-wave mixing
process for matter waves. The BEC was split into two strong source waves and aweak seed wave. The s-wave scattering coherently mixed pairs of atoms from thesources into the seed and its conjugate wave, creating a pair-correlated atomic beams
with “squeezed” number difference.
A Feshbach resonance was used to produce ultracold Na2 molecules with initial
phase-space density in excess of 20. Starting from an atomic BEC, a magnetic fieldramp shifted a bound state from above the threshold of the unbound continuum tobelow, creating a molecular population with almost zero center-of-mass motion. A
reverse field ramp dissociated the cold molecules into free atom pairs carrying kinetic
energy dependent on the ramp speed. This dependence provided a measure of thecoupling strength between the bound state and the continuum.
Condensates were loaded into optical lattices formed with retro-reflected single frequency lasers. Quantum phase transition from the superfluid state to Mott-insulator
state was observed in a three dimensional lattice. The increased interaction and flattened dispersion relation led to strongly enhanced quantum depletion in the superfluid
state.
Thesis Supervisor: Wolfgang Ketterle
Title: John D. MacAurthur Professor of Physics

To my family.

Acknowledgments
I remember a conversation I had during my first year at MIT with someone who justdefended her PhD thesis. I asked her if she was excited about becoming a doctor andshe said yes, but “at some point, you kind of outgrow the process” and finally getting
the degree became rather a natural development. Now as I am writing this last partof my own thesis, it strikes me how true that statement was. Pursuing a PhD reallyis a lot more about the journey than the end, and I could not have made it throughmine without the guidance and support from many people.
My personal journey started in the summer of 2000 when Wolfgang Ketterle offered me the opportunity to join his group at MIT. In Wolfgang, one could not haveasked for a better research advisor. He has perhaps the most trusting style of managing a lab in terms of allowing us maximal latitude without losing touch with whattakes place in each lab. His contagious optimism provided much needed boost to ourmorale in difficult times. My academic advisor, Dave Pritchard, has been extremely
accommodating of my varied academic pursuits, be it quantum field theory or financetheory. Our registration day conversations were always a delight.
When I joined the “New Lab”, the senior people at the time were postdocs Roberto
Onofrio, Chandra Raman and Johnny Vogels. I thank them for welcoming me into
the group. Chandra and Johnny picked me up at the airport when I first arrived.
Roberto left the group shortly after my arrival, but I was deeply impressed by hiskindness and unique sense of humor. Johnny deserves a special acknowledgment as
the mentor who taught me most about the machine and running the experiment. His“fearlessness” in the lab, while sometimes the source of frustration for other people,
is also reflective of his intimate knowledge about the experiment and quick intuitive
thinking. He is definitely one of the smartest people I have met.
In late 2002, I started collaborating with Jamil Abo-Shaeer, who became mypartner in crime until his graduation in 2004. We struggled through many difficulties
but also had a lot of fun working together. He was full of energy both inside andoutside the lab. I particularly envy his ability to palm and dunk the basketball.

Also thanks to him, I became rather fluent in the useful vernacular for “venting
frustrations”. Somewhat later, Takashi Mukaiyama joined the lab as a postdoc. He
had the rare combination of quiet competence and thoughtfulness that made him an
ideal labmate. I thank Takashi for everything he taught me as well as his parting
gifts – a bike and a padlock.
Our current postdoc Yingmei Liu was my labmate during the last couple ofprojects. Her tireless work ethic and attention to details greatly improved the lab
productivity. As a postdoc, Yingmei was a humble collaborator and willingly shouldered a lot of grunt work, without which much of the progress would not have beenmade. I wish her good luck and continued success.
Jit Kee Chin and Dan Miller are two junior (with respect to me) graduate students
in the lab. I am thankful for their help in keeping the lab running. Even though I
didn’t have the chance to work with them extensively, we shared the same office andmany interesting conversations. Jit Kee’s “women-in-physics dinner” leftover andDan’s creative ideas for practical jokes were among the highlights of my time here inbuilding 26. They have now taken the New Lab into the “newer era” of Fermions,and I look forward to learning about their discoveries soon.
Widagdo Setiawan has been an undergraduate research assistant in our lab since
the summer of 2004. His presence ensured that I would not be the only geek in thelab. I was often amazed by his quick learning abilities, and his contribution was
instrumental to a lot of our success. I take the credit for hiring him as our UROP
and expect to see great things from him in the future.
Ketterle group is a large family of some twenty students and postdocs in four labs.
Over the years, I have greatly benefitted from my interaction with the people in otherlabs. In particular, Aaron Leanhardt and Claudiu Stan taught me a lot about thetechnical aspects of the experiments. The discussions I had with Yong-Il Shin andMartin Zwierlein often clarified confusing concepts and led to deeper understandings.
Other people who have helped me in various ways include James Anglin, Micah Boyd,
Gretchen Campbell, Ananth Chikkatur, Kai Dieckmann, Axel Görlitz, Deep Gupta,
Todd Gustavson, Zoran Hadzibabic, Shin Inouye, Tom Pasquini, Till Rosenband,Michele Saba, Andre Schirotzek, Dominik Schneble, Erik Streed, Christian Schunck,and Yoshio Torii.
Our former administrative assistant, the late Carol Costa, was an indispensable
source of information and always went out of her way to make our lives easier. Her
successor Ellenor Emery Barish did an admirable job in making sure we only missed
Carol but not her work. I also thank David Foss, Al McGurl, Maxine Samuels fromthe RLE headquarters and Fred Cote from the student machine shop for their help
during my stay at MIT.
Last but not least, I thank my mother Qiao and father Hongbing for always
allowing me to pursue my interests ever since I was little. Making them proud has
been an important motivation behind everything I have accomplished in my life. My
sister Qi always has my best interest at heart and her presence at my thesis defense
meant a great deal to me. My wife Heng is the love of my life. Her companionshiphas been a constant source of comfort throughout my PhD study especially in timesof self-doubt and anxiety. I am deeply grateful for her understanding and toleranceof my often crazy schedules. I look forward to the next stage of our life together.

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Army
Research Office (ARO), , the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the Defense Advanced
Research Pro jects Agency (DARPA), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Contents
1 Introduction

16

1.1

BEC – a macroscopic quantum phenomenon . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

16

1.2

No interaction no fun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

18

1.2.1

Thomas-Fermi profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

18

1.2.2

Atom optics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

19

1.2.3

Superfluid dynamics and quantum phase transition . . . . . .

19

1.3

Experiment setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

20

1.4

Outline of this thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

21

2 Basic theory
2.1

2.2

2.3

23

Two body collision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

23

2.1.1

Partial wave analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

27

2.1.2

Pseudo potential . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

28

2.1.3

Resonant scattering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

29

Bogoliubov theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

30

2.2.1

BEC with two-body interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

30

2.2.2

Bogoliubov transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

31

2.2.3

Sign of interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

33

2.2.4

Superfluid flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

35

Gross-Pitaevskii equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

37

3 Momentum analysis using Bragg spectroscopy
3.1

Bragg spectroscopy – a “Swiss army knife” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
7

40
41

3.2

3.3

Measuring phonon wavefunction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

42

3.2.1

Experimental setup and time sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . .

43

3.2.2

Measuring Bogoliubov amplitudes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

44

Coherent collision and four-wave mixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

46

3.3.1

Experimental setup and time sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . .

46

3.3.2

Bogoliubov approach for four-wave mixing . . . . . . . . . . .

48

3.3.3

Dual Fock state and Heisenberg-limited interferometry . . . .

52

4 Quantum degenerate molecules

56

4.1

Magnetic Feshbach resonance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

57

4.2

Experimental setup and time sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

59

4.3

Quantum degenerate molecules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

60

4.4

Molecule dissociation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

64

4.4.1

Fermi’s golden rule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

65

4.4.2

Shape resonance67. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5 Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices
5.1

70

Bosons in lattice potential . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

71

5.1.1

Bose-Hubbard model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

72

5.1.2

Shallow lattice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

76

5.1.3

Deep lattice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

78

5.1.4

Mott-insulator transition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

79

5.2

Experimental Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

82

5.3

Yellow lattice and photoassociative resonances . . . . . . . . . . . . .

85

5.4

Enhanced quantum depletion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

87

5.4.1

Quantum depletion in a BEC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

88

5.4.2

BEC in free space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

88

5.4.3

BEC in an optical lattice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

89

5.4.4

Quantum depletion in time-of-flight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

92

Lattice setup procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

96

5.5.1

96

5.5

Laser system and optics layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8

5.6

5.5.2

Lattice beam focusing and alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

99

5.5.3

Lattice beam calibration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

5.5.4

Crossed optical dipole trap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

5.5.5

A few subtleties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Cheatsheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
5.6.1

Useful formulas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

5.6.2

Some numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

5.6.3

Scaling relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

6 Conclusion

114

6.1

Reminiscence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

6.2

Looking ahead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

A Experimental Observation of the Bogoliubov Transfromation for a
Bose-Einstein Condesed Gas

118

B Generation of Macroscopic Pair-Correlated Atomic Beams by FourWave Mixing in Bose-Einstein Condesates

123

C Formation of Quantum-Degenerate Sodium Molecules

128

D Dissociation and Decay of Ultracold Sodium Molecules

133

E Sodium Bose-Einstein Condensates in an Optical Lattice138

F Observation of Strong Quantum Depletion in a Gaseous Bose-Einstein
Condensate

145

Bibliography

150

9List of Figures
2-1 Dispersion relation of a BEC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

36

3-1 Two-photon Bragg scattering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

42

3-2 (Color) Bragg beams setup for phonon wavefunction measurement.

.

44

3-3 Momentum distribution of a condensate with phonons. . . . . . . . .

45

3-4 Bogoliubov amplitudes of phonons in a BEC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

47

3-5 (Color) Bragg beams setup for four wave mixing. . . . . . . . . . . .

49

3-6 Time-of-flight images of atomic four-wave mixing. . . . . . . . . . . .

50

3-7 The correlated exponential growth of seed wave and its conjugate. . .

53

4-1 (Color) Magnetic feshbach resonance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

58

4-2 (Color) Optical trap and magnetic field coils. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

61

4-3 Molecule formation for various ramp speeds of magnetic field. . . . .

62

4-4 Ballistic expansion of a pure molecular cloud . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

63

4-5 Molecular phase space density vs. hold time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

64

4-6 Dissociation energy for different ramp speeds for 23 Na dimers. . . . .

66

4-7 Dissociation energy for different ramp speeds for 87 Rb dimers. . . . .

68

4-8 (Color) Magnetic shape resonance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

69

5-1 Band structure of an optical lattice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

74

5-2 Tunneling ratio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

76

5-3 Effective mass and interaction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

78

5-4 The lowest band in deep lattice regime. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

79

5-5 U and J as functions of lattice depth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

80

10

5-6 (Color) Incommensurate filling in an optical lattice. . . . . . . . . . .

83

5-7 (Color) Optical dipole trap and lattice beams setup. . . . . . . . . . .

84

5-8 Interference patterns in time-of-flight from a three dimensional lattice.

85

5-9 Atoms loss due to photoassociation resonance. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

86

5-10 Quantum depletion density of a BEC in free space. . . . . . . . . . .

90

5-11 Quantum depletion for a BEC in a three dimensional optical lattice. .

91

5-12 Time-of-flight images of atoms released from one, two and three dimensional lattices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

93

5-13 Masked gaussian fit to extract quantum depletion from time-of-flightimages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

94

5-14 Quantum depletion of a BEC in a one, two and three dimensional
optical lattice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

95

5-15 Optics table layout. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

98

5-16 (Color) Collimation of lattice beam. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
5-17 Kapitza-Dirac diffraction in a pulsed optical lattice. . . . . . . . . . . 103
5-18 Band populations of zero momentum state |0i. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
5-19 Energy gap between the lowest and the second excited bands at zeroquasi-momentum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

11

List of Tables
4.1

Position Bres and width ∆B of the Feshbach resonances for 87 Rb . . .

5.1

Various constants for 23 Na, 87 Rb and 6 Li. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

5.2

U and J for 5 to 30 ER three dimensional lattice. . . . . . . . . . . . 112

5.3

Various quantities of interest for atoms in a three dimensional lattice.

12

67

113

Notations
kB : Boltzmann constant~, h : Planck constant h = 2π~
M : atomic mass
as : s-wave scattering length
N : total number of particles
ρ : atomic density ρ = N/VΘ : diluteness factor Θ = ρa3s
p, P : single particle or total momentum
k, K : single particle or total momentum divided by ~x, X : single particle or center of mass position
V : quantization volume
L : length of quantization volume in each dimension
d : number of dimensionsa† , a : atomic field operatorb† , b : quasiparticle field operator
Ψ : many-body wavefunction
χ : condensate wavefunction
ψ : order parameter2g : coupling constant 4π~M asω, ωx,y,z : harmonic trap frequency
13

RTF : Thomas-Fermi radiusµ : chemical potential
cs : speed of sound in a condensate µ = Mc2s
λL : optical lattice wavelength
ER : photon recoil energy at λL
aL : optical lattice periodicity aL = λL /2
kL : recoil momentum (wavenumber) kL = 2π/λL
q : quasi-momentum (wavenumber)q̄ : dimensionless quasi-momentum q̄ = q/kL
uL : optical lattice depth in units of ER
IL : laser peak intensity
PL : laser powerwL : laser 1/e2 beam waistωL : laser frequency (rad/s)
ωa : atomic transition frequency (rad/s)
λa : atomic transition wavelengthωlh : local harmonic frequency at the bottom of each lattice siteωtr : harmonic trap frequency
ωodt : additional trap frequency due to the gaussian profile of the lattice beam
Qe : electron charge
Me : electron mass14

c : speed of light
ε0 : vacuum permittivity in SI units (8.85 × 10−12 F/m)
Γa : natural linewidth of the atom (rad/s)
Γsc : spontaneous Rayleigh scattering ratenavg : coarse-grained atomic density
npeak : peak atomic density at the lattice potential minima
K3 : three-body decay coefficientΓ3 : peak three-body decay rate K3 n2peak

15

Chapter 1
Introduction
It has been a decade since the first observation of Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC)
in a dilute gas of alkali atoms in 1995 [1, 2, 3]. Over the intervening years, thephenomenal growth of ultracold atomic research has contributed a tremendous wealthof knowledge to our understanding about quantum degenerate many-body systems[4, 5, 6]. BEC’s have been achieved in many atomic species including 87 Rb [1], 23 Na[3], 7 Li [2], 1 H [7], 85 Rb [8], 4 He∗ [9, 10], 41 K [11], 133 Cs [12], 174 Yb [13] and 52 Cr [14].
In addition, quantum degeneracy has also been observed in two species of fermions:40

K [15] and 6 Li [16], which is now the subject of very active research.
Given the abundance of good introduction materials today, including the thesesby the previous members of our group, I have decided to limit my own introduction
mainly to the aspects relevant to this thesis. For a full primer and the history of BEC
as well as the development of cooling and trapping techniques in general, I refer tothose earlier works [17, 18].

1.1

BEC – a macroscopic quantum phenomenon

The concept of Bose-Einstein condensation predates the modern quantum mechanics[19, 20]. Since Einstein’s original work in 1924, the physical significance of BEC
seemed to rise and fall and rise again as a consistent quantum theory was developed
and BEC’s connection with superfluidity was made clear. This intertwined history
16

of BEC and quantum mechanics is a fascinating tale of how profound ideas lead tothe discovery of new theories but the significance of the original ideas cannot be fully
appreciated until the theories reach certain maturity.
After the initial success in the studies of superfluid liquid helium and superconductivity, the strong interaction of the conventional condensed matter systems madeit prohibitively difficult to study Bose-Einsteain condensation in details. The quest
for gaseous BEC started in 1980’s when new techniques for cooling and trapping
neutral atoms were being developed. The first attempts were made with polarizedhydrogen atoms on the grounds that the recombination rate into molecules could bemade extremely low and the system would remain gaseous all the way down to zerotemperature [21, 22]. The success in the laser cooling of alkali atoms prompted thealternative efforts in 1990’s to search for BEC in metastable systems where recombination rate is low but finite [23, 24, 25]. In 1995, the confluence of laser cooling andevaporative cooling techniques led to the first observation of BEC in 87 Rb, 7 Li and23

Na [1, 2, 3]. Three years later, hydrogen condensation was also achieved [7].
In a gaseous BEC, the condensate fraction typically exceeds 90 % and the sys-

tem is essentially a giant matter wave of millions of particles1 . As a result, quantum
mechanical effects become highly pronounced. Interesting phenomena such as condensate interference [26], super-radiance [27] and matter wave amplification [28, 29]
were reported shortly after the realization of BEC. In many of these early discoveries.
the (weak) atomic interaction did not play the central role and was either neglectedor treated as a small correction to the main effect. The results discussed in this thesis, however, are among the experiments which investigated the effects of the atomic
interaction.
1

Condensate size varies for different atomic species. Sodium condensate typically has several
millions of atoms (up to a few tens of millions).

17

1.2

No interaction no fun

For experimentalists, the so called “good collisions” – elastic collisions preserving theinternal states of the colliding particles – were crucial for realizing runaway evaporative cooling that ultimately made BEC a reality [30]. However, the effects of theinteraction go far beyond the production of BEC. Despite the extremely low densityof a gaseous condensate, the apparently tenuous interaction is responsible for manyof its salient features, simply because all other energies in the condensate are evensmaller!

1.2.1

Thomas-Fermi profile

The first signature of Bose-Einstein condensation was the absorption images taken
during the ballistic expansion after the cloud was released from the magnetic trap.
The bimodal density distribution consisting of a sharp parabola and a broader gaussian indicated the co-existence of the condensate and the thermal component [1, 3].
The condensate profile in time-of-flight comes from a rescaling of the parabolic
Thomas-Fermi profile in the harmonic trap potential [31]. This is in contrast to theground state of a non-interacting system: all atoms have a gaussian wavefunction, thesize of which is determined by the balance between kinetic energy (delocalization) andpotential energy (localization). At the typical BEC density, however, the meanfieldinteraction energy (divided by ~) is much greater than the trap frequency – this iscalled the Thomas-Fermi regime [see equation (2.69)]. As such, the spatial extent
of the condensate wavefunction is much greater than the harmonic oscillator length,
and the delocalization comes mainly from the repulsive interaction while the kinetic
energy can be neglected 2 .
2Here we assume a repulsive interaction. In case of an attractive interaction, the condensate is
further localized and the kinetic energy is the only delocalizing source and must be of the same
magnitude as the interaction energy.

18

1.2.2

Atom optics

One of the great promises of BEC is making possible the kind of atom optics analogous
to and even beyond what can be done with lasers, potentially at greater precisions[26, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37]. Indeed, “atom laser” is now in the standard nomenclature of
atomic physics. Beyond the apparent similarities, however, BEC’s differ from opticallasers in a number of important ways. Unlike photons, massive particles cannot
be created or annihilated under the normal conditions of low energy experiments,and one cannot as easily crank up the intensity of matter waves as one would an
optical laser. Furthermore, photons are for the most part non-interacting even athigh intensities whereas atoms are almost always interacting. At high densities, thedecoherence effect due to the interaction is a thorny issue in achieving high precision
measurement 3 .
On the other hand, the interaction in a BEC can be thought of as an inherent nonlinearity, which for photons would require special non-linear optical media. Therefore
wave mixing experiments can be performed with BECs in vacuum [38, 39], which could
be used to realize various squeezed states. Novel schemes have been proposed to takeadvantage of such non-classical states and achieve Heisenberg limited spectroscopy,
massive quantum entanglement, etc. [40, 41, 42, 43, 44].

1.2.3

Superfluid dynamics and quantum phase transition

The experimental observation of superfluidity in liquid 4 He almost coincided with therealization [45, 46, 47] that Bose-Einstein condensation was behind the λ-transition
discovered earlier from the specific heat measurement [48]. Over the years, the connection between BEC and superfluidity gained further support from both experimental evidences and theoretical studies [49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55], and is now widely
accepted as one of the great triumphs of quantum statistical mechanics.
In today’s literature, BEC is quite often called “superfluid” almost interchangeably, but one would be remiss to take “superfluid” as a synonym for BEC. In fact,
3

At higher still densities, inelastic three-body collisions cause atom losses.

19

BEC of non-interacting particles does not possess superfluidity. It is because of theinteraction that the low-lying excitation spectrum of the BEC exhibits a linear dispersion relation, which leads to a non-vanishing critical velocity and superfluid flow(see discussion in Section 2.2).
What makes the gaseous BEC more interesting is the possibility to manipulate theinteraction strength using Feshbach resonances [56, 57] or optical lattices. The strong
inelastic collision loss near a Feshbach resonance limited its usefulness in experimentsthat required long coherent time [58]. Optical lattices have proven to be a viable toolthat has enabled the observations of many intriguing phenomena such as quantum
phase transition [59, 60], massively entangled state [61], Tonks-Girardeau gas [62, 63],
long-lived Feshbach molecules [64, 65, 66], and enhanced quantum depletion [67]. In
addition, Mott-insulator state of less than three atoms per lattice site provided a way
to circumvent the collision loss problem near a Feshbach resonance.

1.3

Experiment setup

In this section, I briefly describe the laboratory in which I spent my five plus years
as a graduate student. A detailed technical account of machine construction can befound in the thesis by the former graduate student Dallin Durfee [68].
All the experiments discussed in this thesis were performed on the second-generation
BEC machine here at MIT, nicknamed “New Lab” despite the fact that the first generation machine (“Old Lab”) has long been upgraded to a dual-species system (nowcalled “Lithium Lab”). In the past year or so, our lab also underwent a similar renovation to become the new 6 Li lab. The work discussed here, however, involved onlya single species of 23 Na.
The machine itself is of a classic design featuring a (horizontal) Zeeman slower
and an Ioffe-Pritchard magnetic trap. Our machine differs from the three other BEC
labs at MIT in that the BEC is produced in a glass cell that by design should provide
improved optical access. As it turns out, the modest gain in optical access comesat a price. The fragility of the system, especially in times when we had to repair
20

the vacuum system or water cooling circuits, proved a source for endless fear anddistress. Thankfully, the glass junction was strong enough to survive the replacementof gate-valve, and later the complete overhaul of the oven chamber, both of which
required applying considerable force and torque – of course, care was taken to avoid
direct impact on the glass cell.
Through much of my time in the lab, I have worked closely with two dye laser
systems. A Coherent 899 model pumped by a Millennia Xs (Spectra-Physics)
produced all the light necessary for BEC production and detection. An older Coherent 699 model pumped by a Coherent Innova 110 argon-ion laser was firstused for Bragg spectroscopy and later used in the initial attempts at setting up an
optical lattice. The long hours spent in the lab cajoling the pair of lasers into stableperformance were a significant part of my PhD career. Over the years, I have probably fiddled with, and in many cases, replaced every single part of the laser system– eventually I decided if nothing else, I could become a competent laser technician
for a living! To me, this particular aspect of my lab life is also a microcosm of mypersonal development as an experimental physicist, i.e., learning to combine problem
solving skills with an audacity to try different “knobs”.

1.4

Outline of this thesis

Chapter 2 reviews in some details the basic theories relevant to the experiments
discussed in this thesis. These results are referred to throughout the thesis. The
subsequent chapters discuss in chronological order a series of experiments to which
I have made significant contribution. Chapter 3 discusses the experiments using
Bragg spectroscopy as both excitation and detection tools to study the dynamics
of the condensate in momentum space. These are two early experiments led by theformer postdoc, Johnny Vogels, with whom I collaborated closely as a junior graduate
student. Chapter 4 discusses the experiments on molecule formation using Feshbachresonances. The first experiment realized at the time the first quantum degenerate
molecular sample, albeit with milliseconds lifetime. I played the leading role in this21

experiment. The second experiment led by the former postdoc, Takashi Mukaiyama,studied the dissociation behavior of the ultracold molecules as well as the inelastic
collision losses. My contribution was developing the theoretical model connecting
the dissociation energy with the atom-molecule coupling responsible for the Feshbachresonance. Chapter 5 discusses our effort in setting up an optical lattice which became
a technical challenge due to various practical issues. I first started this effort withthe former graduate student Jamil Abo-Shaeer in late 2002, and later Takashi alsojoined the project. We were able to make some progress with a red-detuned dyelaser but eventually switched to a high power infrared laser. The IR system was set
up in collaboration with the postdoc Yingmei Liu. Chapter 6 concludes this thesis
with some retrospection and future outlook. Appendices A-F include the reprintsof the publications resultant from the work discussed in this thesis. Wherever it ispossible, the discussion in the Chapters avoids repeating what is already covered in
the publications.

22

Chapter 2
Basic theory
This chapter discusses some basic theories that are referred to throughout the subsequent chapters.
Exact solutions are few and far between when it comes to dealing with interacting
many-body systems. In order to make some progress, approximate theories must
be developed to focus on some aspects of the problems while ignoring others. A
big reason why gaseous BEC is interesting to theorists is that because of the weakinteraction, the approximate theories are often good enough to get quite close inpredicting the experimental observations. In this chapter, I will present (and try tojustify as much as possible) the series of approximations that led to the theoretical
tools most used in my studies. Parts of the following discussion could be found invarious textbooks (e.g. [69, 70, 71, 72]), but I made a conscious attempt to derive
everything in a coherent manner, which hopefully helps elucidate key concepts that,from my own experience, are often talked about yet prone to misunderstandings.
Emphasis is placed on consistency rather than mathematical rigor.

2.1

Two body collision

Much of this thesis is concerned with the role of atomic interaction in a Bose-Einsteincondensate. In particular, we consider two-body interaction that is a conservative
function of the separation between pairs of particles. This is well justified given the23low density of the typical gaseous condensate – about 100000 times thinner than
the air. More than two-body encounters are much rarer and can be ignored. The
non-relativistic Hamiltonian of N identical particles is therefore:
N
X
p2

N

1X
H=
U(xi − xj )+2M
2 i,j=1
i=1
i

(2.1)

where pi and xi are the momentum and position of the ith particle, M the particle
mass and U(x) is the two-body interaction potential. Sometimes it is more convenient
to work in the notations of second quantization:
H=

X p2
p

2M

a†p ap +1 X
λ(p1 − p3 )a†p3 a†p4 ap1 ap2
2

(2.2)

p1 +p2=p3 +p4

where the sum over momenta p becomes an integral in the limit of infinite quantization
volume. Throughout this thesis, unless otherwise noted, I choose to use an explicit
quantization volume V = Ld and periodic boundary condition for a d-dimensional
system, but always assume the thermodynamic limit unless otherwise noted:
N, V

→ ∞

(2.3)

N/V

= n

(2.4)

where n is the (constant) finite density.
In addition, the low temperature (.1 µK) justifies accounting for only the lowlying momentum states. Stated more precisely, if the effective range of interaction
is Re (the interaction strength is assumed to decrease faster than r −3 where r isinter-particle distance), the density n satisfies
nRe3 ≪ 1

24

(2.5)

and the temperature T satisfies:
kB T ≪

~2
MRe2

(2.6)

It is then reasonable to argue that the many-body wavefunction Ψ(x1 , x2 , ..., xN ) issignificant mostly for:|xi − xj | ≫ Re

(2.7)

and one does not care about the exact details of U within Re , as long as the asymptotic
scattering behavior at large distances is adequately reproduced for low momentum(~k) collisions:
k≪

1
Re

(2.8)

Further approximations are based on an asymptotic analysis of the two-body scattering problem in the low momentum collision regime, starting with the Schödinger’s
equation in the center-of-mass frame:

−


~2
2
∇ + U(x) ψ(x) = Eψ(x)2(M/2)(2.9)

where M/2 is the reduced mass. U(x) is assumed to approach 0 as x → ∞ andtreated as a perturbation. We look for eigenstates corresponding to an incident plane
wave |ki:

eik·xhx|ki = √V

(2.10)

2 2

with kinetic energy ~Mk = E. The perturbation U couples this plane wave to otherstates of the system and create a scattered wave |ϕi with asymptotic form:
eikr
hx|ϕi = f (θ, φ)r(2.11)

where r, θ and φ are the spherical coordinates of x.
For convenience, define the “reduced” potential:
u(x) =

M
U(x)
~2

25

(2.12)

and rewrite Eq. (2.13) as:
k 2 − ∇2 ψ(x) = u(x)ψ(x)(2.13)|ψi = |ki + |ϕi(2.14)|k′ ihk′ |u|kidk′ 2
k − k ′2 + i0+(2.15)

The first order perturbation gives:
V
|ϕi =
(2π)3

Z

where V /(2π)3 is the density of states as we have defined plane waves with a quantization volume V that goes to infinity in the continuum limit [see Eq. (2.10)]. The 0+
ensures only outward scattering wave exists.
Eq. (2.15) evaluates to the following:
ϕ(x) = −

1
√

4π V

Z

′

dx′

eik|x−x |′ ik·x′u(x)e|x − x′ |(2.16)

which is the first order Born expansion and can also be obtained with the Green
Function approach [71]. We are only concerned with asymptotic behavior at large x
and Eq. (2.16) reduces to:ϕ(x) =



eikx
√
Vx



1
−
4π

Z

′

′

i∆k·x′

dx u(x )e(2.17)

where:∆k = k − kxx(2.18)

In general, the integral involving u is a function of scattering direction (θ, φ). However,as ∆k satisfies the low momentum criterion (2.8). Eq. (2.17) further reduces to:eikx√
ϕ(x) = −as
Z Vx
1
as =
dx′ u(x′ )4πZMdx′ U(x′ )
=
4π~2
26

(2.19)(2.20)

where the constant as has the dimension of length and is defined as the scattering
length.

2.1.1

Partial wave analysis

Another way of analyzing the asymptotic scattering behavior is to use the partial
waves that have well-defined angular momenta – conventionally labeled as |l, mi.
This is possible so long as the pair potential U(x) is spherically symmetric hence
the Hamiltonian is rotation-invariant. For a given momentum |l, mi, the Schödinger
equation (2.13) reduces to the radial equation:l(l + 1)1 ∂2
2rρl (r) + k ρl (r) =+ u(r) ρl (r)r ∂r 2r2(2.21)In absence of interaction (u = 0), ρl (r) is the spherical Bessel function jl (kr), which
has the following asymptotic behavior:(kr)l(2l + 1)!!

(2.22)1πsin(kr − l )kr2(2.23)jl (kr) ∼when r → 0, and:jl (kr) ∼when r → ∞.

Since the right hand side of Eq. (2.21) vanishes at large r, ρl (r) is asymptotically:ρl (r) ∝π1sin(kr − l + δl )r2

(2.24)

where δl captures the effect of the interaction as a phase shift for the partial wave ofangular momentum l.
To connect the partial waves with the scattered wave |ϕi above in (2.11), first

expand the free particle plane wave eikz in terms of the free partial waves:
ikz

e

∞
X
p
il 4π(2l + 1)jl (kr)Yl0 (θ)
=
l=0

27

(2.25)

where Yl0 is the spherical harmonic function. Notice that jl consists of equal amountof incoming wave e−ikr /r and outgoing wave e−ikr /r, and the effect of the interaction
should therefore only modify the outgoing wave part, so as to create the scatteredwave |ϕi ∼ eikr /r. From (2.24), it means adding a phase shift of 2δl to the outgoingwave part of jl (kr), and we have:∞eikr X p√
4π(2l + 1)eiδl sin δl Yl0 (θ)ϕ(x) =
V r l=0(2.26)

Ignoring the angle dependence of the integral of u in (2.17) is equivalent to saying
only the s-wave (l = 0) gets a significant phase shift δ0 . This is justified for smallpk, because jl (kr) is only significant when kr > l(l + 1) [Eq. (2.22)] and therefore

within the interaction range Re , only the s-wave is significantly affected and accu-

mulates a phase shift. It can be shown that as k → 0, δ0 → −kas where as is thescattering length defined above.

2.1.2

Pseudo potential

The above analysis made clear the earlier statement that the details of U(r) could be
ignored at the low density and low temperature limit. A single parameter – s-wave
scattering length as – captures for the most part the effect of the interaction as far as
the “bulk” properties of the many-body wavefunction Ψ(x1 , x2 , ..., xN ) are concerned.
Eq. (2.20) implies that one may replace U(r) with any short-range function whose
spatial integration is equal to g:
4π~2 asg=
M(2.27)U ′ (x) = gδ(x)(2.28)

in particular:

where δ(x) is the Dirac δ-function. A more stringent form of contact pseudo-potential∂
contains a regularization operator ∂rr, which can usually be left out as long as the

wavefunction behaves “regularly” at small particle separations (see [70]).
28

Finally, the second quantization Hamiltonian (2.2) can be simplified with thecoupling coefficients:1λ(∆p) =VZ

dx U(x)ei∆p(2.29)

being replaced by a constant g/V .

2.1.3

Resonant scattering

Normally the first order results obtained above are quite sufficient for describing theeffects of interaction in a condensate. A notable exception occurs when a boundstate is energetically close to the continuum of unbound states and it couples tothe continuum. Such situation causes resonant scattering phenomena including themagnetic Feshbach resonances discussed in Chapter 4 [56, 57].
Suppose the bound state |βi has energy Eβ and the coupling between the boundstate and the continuum is W . One must then include the second order terms related
to the bound state in the scattered wave |ϕi:V
|ϕ i =
(2π)3
(2)

Z

M
M
′
′
′ |k ihk | ~2 W |βihβ| ~2 W |kidk 2(k − k ′2 + i0+ )(k 2 − MEβ /~2 )(2.30)To be more specific, consider the typical situation for a magnetic Feshbach resonance. The bound state energy is:
Eβ = ∆µ(B − B0 )(2.31)

where ∆µ is the magnetic moment difference between the bound state and the continuum state, B is the magnetic field strength and the bound state is degenerate withthe continuum threshold at B = B0 . In the strong field regime of our experiments,
W is the V hf part of the hyperfine interaction as defined in [73]. Eq. (2.30) evaluated−

in |xi basis becomes:(2)hx|ϕ i =



eikx
√
Vx



MV hk xx |W |βihβ|W |ki−
2 k2
4π~2 ~M− ∆µ(B − B0 )29!

= −∆as



eikx
√
Vx



where:∆as =MV hk xx |W |βihβ|W |ki
2 k2
4π~2 ~M− ∆µ(B − B0 )M V |h0|W |βi|2≈ −4π~2 ∆µ(B − B0 )(2.32)(2.33)

where ∆as is the modification to the scattering length due to the bound state andthe last approximate equality holds for k → 0. (2.33) is the often quoted dispersive
form of the scattering length near a Feshbach resonance [74, 73, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79]. It
should be pointed out that the above result (2.32) only holds when the bound stateis close to being degenerate with the colliding state but not exactly. Otherwise thescattering amplitude diverges and the perturbative approach fails. In this case, one
should treat the problem exactly [69].

2.2

Bogoliubov theory

2.2.1

BEC with two-body interaction

At temperature T in thermal equilibrium, the density matrix of the system σ is given
by [72]:σ=Xiexp(− kEBiT )|Ψi ihΨi |
P
Ej
)
exp(−
j
kB T

(2.34)

where i, j index the eigenstates of the many-body system and |Ψi i is the eigenstateof energy Ei . |Ψi i is either symmetric (boson) or anti-symmetric (fermion) under theexchange of any pair of particles. Bose-Einstein condensation occurs when at a finite
temperature T > 0, the reduced single particle density matrix σ1 :DEhp′ | σ1 |p′′ i = a†p′ ap′′

(2.35)

has one (or more) eigenvalue(s) nM that satisfies [54]:nM= Finite Constant
N →∞ Nlim

30(2.36)

An order parameter ψ can be defined as:
ψ=

√

nM χ0

(2.37)

where χ0 is the eigenstate of σ1 corresponding to the eigenvalue nM – sometimes
referred to as the condensate wavefunction.

2.2.2

Bogoliubov transformation

In absence of other external potentials, the Hamiltonian in (2.1) and (2.2) is invariant
under spatial translation, which means the total momentum P is a good quantum
number for the eigenstates of the system. It immediately follows that the single particle density matrix σ1 is diagonal with respect to the momentum basis |pi. Therefore,
Bose-Einstein condensation occurs when there is a macroscopic occupation of a single
momentum state.
N. N. Bogoliubov was the first to study in details the ground state properties of
weakly interacting Bosons [80]. In deriving the theory, one first assumes the many
body wavefunction contains N0 ∼ N atoms in the zero momentum state and only
small population in other momentum states – called “quantum depletion”. As aresult, the field operators of zero momentum state a†0 , a0 can be treated as complex√
numbers ∼ N0 in solving the Heisenberg equations of motion for the field operators.
Using a canonical transformation now named after Bogoliubov, one can diagonalize
the equations and obtain the energy spectrum.
Bogoliubov started from the Hamiltonian (2.2), replacing the coupling factor
λ(∆p) with the constant g/V [see (2.27)], and made the further assumption thatthe population in the zero momentum state N0 ≃ N ≫ 1 1 which led to (1) operatorsa†0 and a0 can be treated as complex numbers; (2) only interaction terms containing
1

For consistency, the notations here differ slightly from Bogoliubov’s original work [80].

31

at least two a†0 or a0 need to be retained:
H=

X p2
p

1g
a†p ap +2M
2Va†0 a†0 a0 a0 + 2

X
p6=0

X † †
X †
a†p a†−p a0 a0 + 2
a0 a0 ap a−p + 4
a0 a0 a†p ap
p6=0

p6=0

(2.38)

where the multiplicities of the interaction terms account for the commutativity of the
field operators.
With the approximate Hamiltonian, one obtains the Heisenberg equations of motion for the field operators:
i~
i~

da0
g †
=
a a0 a0dt
V 0(2.39)dapgg= T (p)ap + a0 a0 a†−p + 2 a†0 a0 ap
dt p6=0VV(2.40)

2pis the kinetic energy. Replacing a†0 a0 with N0 and µ being thewhere T (p = 2M

meanfield energy gN0/V , one gets from (2.39):µa0 (t) = a0 (0)e−i ~ t =pµN0 e−i ~ t(2.41)µSubstituting (2.41) and âp = ap e−i ~ t into (2.40), one gets:i~dâp= ζ(p)âp + µâ†−pdt(2.42)

ζ(p) = T (p) + µ(2.43)

where:To diagonalize equation (2.42), we employ canonical transformation:
bp = upâp + vp â†−p(2.44)b†p = u∗pâ†p + vp∗ â−p(2.45)|up|2 − |vp |2 = 1(2.46)

where up and vp satisfy:32!

in order for the commutation relation:
bp , b†p = 1(2.47)

to hold. From Eq. (2.42) and its complex conjugate replacing p with −p, one gets:i~dbp= (up ζ(p) − vp µ) âp + (up µ − vp ζ(p)) â†−p
dt(2.48)

One then forces the right hand side of (2.48) to be proportional to bp , and solves forup and vp subject to (2.46) and obtain:
up = pwhere:

vp = pǫ(p) =µµ2 − |ζ(p) − ǫ(p)|2µµ2 − |ζ(p) − ǫ(p)|2p

T 2 (p) + 2T (p)µ(2.49)(2.50)(2.51)

is the eigenenergy corresponding to quasiparticle bp (b†p ). Eqs. (2.44) and (2.45) alongwith (2.49) and (2.50) are the famed Bogoliubov transformation.

2.2.3

Sign of interaction

It should be noted that T (p), µ and ζ(p) are generally real, and the above Bogoliubovtransformation only works if ǫ(p) is real as well, in which case Eqs. (2.49) and (2.50)

33

reduce to the more commonly used forms:

up =

s

T (p) + µ + ǫ(p)2ǫ(p)ǫ(p) + T (p)p
2 T (p)ǫ(p)s
T (p) + µ − ǫ(p)
=
2ǫ(p)

=
vp

=

ǫ(p) − T (p)p
2 T (p)ǫ(p)(2.52)(2.53)

If ǫ(p) becomes imaginary, i.e. T 2 (p) + 2T (p)µ < 0, then there is no u and v that
can achieve the aforementioned diagonalization [the denominators of Eqs. (2.49) and(2.50) vanishes]. This is no surprise as the original Hamiltonian is Hermitian andcannot have imaginary eigenvalues.
Note that as T (p) is continuous starting from zero, the sign of the interaction gdetermines whether ǫ(p) is ever imaginary for certain (small enough) momenta p.
In case of repulsive interaction (g > 0), ǫ(p) is always real and the Bogoliubovtransformation gives the low-lying excitation spectrum of a stable condensate. The
quasiparticle operators bp (b†p ) correspond to the eigenmodes of the system, calledphonons. The ground state wavefunction |Ψ0 i can be obtained by requiring:bp |Ψ0 i = 0(2.54)

j
∞ 
Y 1 X
vp
|Ψ0 i ∝ |n0 = Ni−
|np = j, n−p = ji
u
u
p j=0
p
p6=0

(2.55)

for all p and turns out to be:where np is the number of particles in (single particle) momentum state |pi. Notethat in (2.55) the total number of particles N is not conserved, which is a resultof treating a0 and a†0 as complex numbers. The number conserving version can beobtained by subtracting the quantum depletion – population in non-zero momentum

34

states – from N for n0 .
In case of attractive interaction (g < 0), for sufficiently small |p|, no phonon
operators can be constructed with the Bogoliubov transformation. Physically, thismeans no stationary condensate wavefunction as described above exists, where N0 ∼N particles are in the zero-momentum state. If one starts with a stable condensate
with repulsive interaction and suddenly switches the sign of interaction, the particles
in the zero-momentum state will collide into the low-lying momentum states. The
so-called “quantum evaporation” corresponds to such a situation [81].

2.2.4Superfluid flow

Eq. (2.51) gives the dispersion relation for the low-lying excitations of the condensate– here I shall only consider the case of repulsive interaction and stable condensate.
It is often convenient to define a natural momentum unit for a condensate ps = Mcs
where cs is the speed of sound given by:
Mc2s = µ(2.56)

There are two momentum regimes depending on the magnitude of the momentum ascompared to ps , as shown in Fig. 2-1:
Phonon regime when |p| ≪ ps ;Free-particle regime when |p| ≫ ps .
In the phonon regime, the dispersion relation becomes linear:ǫ(p) = c|p|(2.57)and in the free-particle regime, the dispersion relation becomes the usual quadratic
form plus a meanfield offset:
ǫ(p) =

p2
+µ
2M

35

(2.58)

5
Free particle

ε(p) [mcs2]

4
3

Phonon

2
1

0.5

1

1.5
p [mcs]2

2.5

Figure 2-1: Dispersion relation of a BEC: The momentum is in units of ps = mcs
where cs is the speed of sound. ps separates the two regimes in which the dispersion
relation is either linear or quadratic.

It is exactly the linear dispersion near zero-momentum that gives rise to superfluidity. To see this [70], consider a condensate having a massive velocity of V that isinteracting with a stationary obstacle. In the rest frame of the condensate, a quantum of excitation at momentum p corresponds to energy cs |p|. In the rest frame ofthe obstacle, this excitation causes ∆E = cs |p| + V · p. Since the obstacle remains
stationary and does no work, ∆E must be zero, and we have:cs |p| = −V · p ≤ |V||p|(2.59)

This inequality cannot be satisfied if |V| < cs . Therefore, when the massive flow speed
is less than the speed of sound, the stationary obstacle cannot excite the condensate
and cause its flow to slow down. cs is the critical velocity of the superfluid flow
[82, 83, 84, 85, 86], and was observed in a gaseous condensate as one of the first
proofs of superfluidity [87, 88, 89].

36

In contrast, for a BEC of non-interacting particles, the dispersion relation remains quadratic at zero momentum and there is no finite critical velocity, hence nosuperfluidity.

2.3

Gross-Pitaevskii equation

A related but somewhat different approach to deriving the condensate wavefunction isbased on the Hartree-Fock method [71], which is especially useful when it is necessary
to account for the trapping potential. This approach leads to the well-known GrossPitaevskii (GP) equation [4, 5]. The time-dependent form of GP equation is often used
for direct (in other words, brute-force) simulation of condensate dynamics, sometimes
with modifications such as rotating reference frame and phenomenological damping
factor [90, 91, 92].
Briefly, by taking the many-body wavefunction as a multiplication of N identical
single particle wavefunctions Ψ(x1 , x2 , ..., xN ) = χ(x1 )χ(x2 )...χ(xN ), and minimizing
the functional:
H(χ) = NZ
Z
N(N − 1)
~2 2
∇ + Uex (x) χ(x) +g dx |χ(x)|4 (2.60)
dx χ (x) −2M2∗subject to the normalization constraint:Zdx |χ(x)|2 = 1(2.61)~2 2λ∇ χ + Uex χ + g(N − 1) |χ|2 χ = χ
2MN(2.62)

leads to the GP equation:−

where Ue x(x) is the external trapping potential and λ is the Lagrangian multiplier.
√
A cleaner form is obtained by using the order parameter defined as ψ(x) = N χ(x)37and the chemical potential µ = λ/N, also noting N − 1 ≃ N for large N:−~2 2∇ ψ + Uex ψ + g |ψ|2 ψ = µψ
2M(2.63)

Incidentally, to see why µ is the called the chemical potential, one can rewrite theconstrained functional minimization problem in terms of ψ. Noting that N is the“target” value for the constraint, it immediately follows that the minimized H∗ andthe corresponding µ∗ (i.e. the ground state energy) satisfies: µ∗ = ∂H∗ /∂N.
In the Thomas-Fermi regime, the meanfield energy:
g |ψ|2 =4π~2 as nM(2.64)

dominates over the kinetic energy, ignoring the kinetic energy term in 2.63 altogether
leads to the equation for the Thomas-Fermi profile of the condensate:
Uex + g |ψ|2 = µ(2.65)

which for a harmonic trap Uex (x) = 21 M(ωx2 x2 + ωy2y 2 + ωz2z 2 ) gives the density profilen(x, y, z):n(x, y, z) = g

−1



1
µ − M(ωx2 x2 + ωy2 y 2 + ωz2z 2 )2(2.66)

Therefore a trapped condensate has an inverse-parabolic density distribution with
Thomas-Fermi radii:
RT2 F,i =2µMωi2(2.67)

where i = x, y, z. This is a very good approximation and the small deviation is at
the edge of the condensate where the density is rounded off instead of abruptly goingto zero [4]. For a given N, µ is determined by the normalization condition thatR
N = dx n(x):2~ω̃ 15Nas 5µ(N) =(2.68)
2ãHOq
where ω̃ = (ωx ωy ωz )1/3 is the geometric-mean trap frequency and ãHO = M~ω̃ is the38mean harmonic oscillator length.
Finally note that in the Thomas-Fermi regime:1µ = Mω 2 RT2 F ≫ ~ω2

(2.69)

which is equivalent to:
RT F ≫

r

~
= aHO
Mω

(2.70)

which means the condensate wavefunction has a spatial extension much greater than
the single particle ground state in the harmonic trap.

39

Chapter 3
Momentum analysis using Bragg
spectroscopy
This chapter discusses two experiments using the technique of two-photon Bragg scattering to both prepare (excite) and probe the condensates:• J.M. Vogels, K. Xu, C. Raman, J.R. Abo-Shaeer, and W. Ketterle, Experimental
Observation of the Bogoliubov Transformation for a Bose-Einstein Condensed
Gas, Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 060402 (2002). Included in Appendix A.
• J.M. Vogels, K. Xu, and W. Ketterle, Generation of Macroscopic Pair-Correlated
Atomic Beams by Four-Wave Mixing in Bose-Einstein Condensates, Phys. Rev.
Lett. 89, 020401 (2002). Included in Appendix B.
The experiments always deal with condensates of finite size confined in a (usually)harmonic trapping potential, whereas the Bogoliubov theory derived in Section 2.2
assumes a homogeneous system with translational symmetry whose eigenstates havewell defined momenta. Nevertheless, the main results of the theory work quite wellfor understanding many processes in a trapped condensate, including some of theexperiments described in this thesis. Oftentimes, a local density approximation is
sufficient to account for the inhomogeneity, and as long as the dynamics in question
occurs on timescales much faster than the trap period, the presence of the trap canbe largely ignored.
40

Both experiments described in this chapter used Bragg spectroscopy to analyze
the “momentum” distribution of condensate wavefunctions, whose static and dynamic
properties were directly related to the atomic interaction. The momentum states in
the following discussion should be understood as wavepackets of the condensate size
∆R ∼ RT F , and have a momentum “uncertainty” ∆P ∼ ~/RT F . In addition, momentum states different by more than ∆P are approximately orthogonal – sometimes
called “quasimodes” [93, 44, 94].

3.1

Bragg spectroscopy – a “Swiss army knife”

Despite its name, Bragg spectroscopy is more than just a spectroscopic technique. It
has proven an extremely versatile tool in the studies of ultracold atomic systems. Since
1988, two-photon Bragg diffraction of atoms from a moving optical lattice has beenused as a coherent beamsplitter for atomic samples much like an optical beamsplitter
for light [95], and was first applied in a Bose-Einstein condensate in 1999 [96, 97].
Subsequently, the Bragg spectroscopy was extensively used both as an exciter and as
a probe to study the condensate dynamics by measuring the momentum distributionof the condensate or, more precisely, the dynamic structure factor [85, 98, 99].
As a beamsplitter, the two-photon Rabi frequency is typically high and exceeds
the inhomogeneous “linewidth” of the atoms, so that the collective effect (such as themeanfield) can be ignored and all atoms are coherently split in the momentum space.
Large fraction – 50 % (π/2-pulse) to 100 % (π-pulse) – of the atomic population areroutinely transferred between momentum states. As an exciter or a probe, the Bragg
beams are typically operated in the perturbative regime where a linear response theory
provides a good description of the process [99]. For the two experiments discussed
in this Chapter [100, 39], we utilized all three aforementioned functions of Bragg
spectroscopy.
There are various ways to look at the two-photon Bragg scattering process, somemore rigorous and generally applicable than others. Here, I choose to adopt a practical“experimentalist” view of a scatterer under the influence of two far-detuned laser
41beams as illustrated in Fig. 3-11 . The scatterer coherently absorbs a photon from thehigher frequency beam and subsequently emits one into the lower frequency beam.
The total energy and momentum must be conserved, and therefore the resonantcondition is given by:∆ωres = ω(q + ∆k) − ω(q)ω − ∆ω
k − ∆k

q

(3.1)

ω
k

Figure 3-1: Two-photon Bragg scattering: The yellow ball can be a single particle ora many-body system such as a BEC, that has an initial momentum q. The resonantcondition is satisfied when the frequency difference ∆ω between the two Bragg beams
exactly matches the energy cost to transfer momentum ∆k to the scatterer.

Usually the dispersion relation (ω(q)) for the scatterer approaches the quadratic
free-particle asymptote for large momentum q such as in Fig. 2-1. The resonantcondition then becomes (for large ∆k):∆ωres =~(∆k2 + q · ∆k) + δ(q)
2M

(3.2)

2

~q
where δ(q) includes ω(q), 2M
and any other small offset (such as the meanfield shift)that depends on q. The linear term q · ∆k should be much greater than δ(q) in orderfor the momentum distribution to be (linearly) mapped into the frequency domain.
For this reason, the momentum transfer ∆k is typically set to be as large as possible
when measuring the momentum distribution through Bragg spectroscopy.

3.2

Measuring phonon wavefunction

The Bogoliubov theory showed that because of the interaction, the elementary excitations in a BEC are phonons corresponding to the quasi-particle creation/annihilation
1

Far-detuned means the two-photon Rabi frequency of the stimulated Bragg scattering process
is much greater than the spontaneous Rayleigh scattering.

42

operators given in Eqs. (2.44) and (2.45). From the ground state wavefunction (2.55),
it is straightforward to calculate that for l phonons at momentum p (bp†l |Ψ0 i), there

are lu2p + vp2 free particles moving with momentum p and (l + 1)vp2 moving with momentum −p2 . The finite population vp2 present in the ground state corresponds tothe quantum depletion and will be further discussed in Chapter 5. Since both u2p andvp2 become ≫ 1 for small momentum p, we expect to see a significant populations inboth the +p and −p directions.

3.2.1

Experimental setup and time sequence

In the first experiment [100], we used the Bragg spectroscopy to excite phonons in
the condensate and subsequently probe the resulted momentum distribution [101].
The setup of the Bragg beams is illustrated in Fig. 3-2. We first turned on a pairof small angle (30 mrad) Bragg beams 1 and 2 for 3 ms, exciting phonons at low
momentum q/M = 1.9 mm/s (the speed of sound cs for our experiment was at least
twice higher). Subsequently, a pair of large angle Bragg beams were pulsed for 500 µs
to probe the momentum distribution of the system – the large momentum transfer
Q/M = 59 mm/s was at least 10 times greater than cs . The trap was then switched
off and the atoms expanded ballistically for 40 ms before an absorption image wastaken. In the experiment, we actually retro-reflected a laser beam that contained
both ω and ω − ∆ωp for the large angle Bragg scattering, resulting in out-couplingof atoms in both direction – a technicality largely out of convenience. All the Bragg
pulses were applied when the condensate was held in a magnetic trap whose radial
and axial trapping frequencies were 37 and 7 Hz respectively.
Fig. 3-3 shows three absorption images taken when the probe frequency was resonant with the atoms in +q, 0, −q momentum states with respect to the direction of
the large momentum transfer Q. Note that in the center of the images, aside fromthe remnant of the initial condensate, there is a shadow of atoms on one side of thecondensate corresponding to the phonons that were adiabatically converted into free2

We see from the normalization condition (2.46) that the total momentum is still lp, consistent
with the phonon picture.

43

Imaging Axisω − ∆ωpk − ∆kp

ω
k

BEC

4

3

ω − ∆ωek − ∆ke12ωkFigure 3-2: (Color) Bragg beams setup for phonon wavefunction measurement: The
small angle beams 1 and 2 were used to excite phonons at q = ∆ke , while the large
angle beams 3 and 4 were used to measure the momentum distribution Q = ∆kp .
Absorption images were taken along the long axis of the condensate.

particles during the ballistic expansion. This is a consequence due to the condensate
being in the Thomas-Fermi regime, where the density drops on a timescale (inverse
radial trap frequency which is 37 Hz) much slower than the inverse of the phonon
energies (about 400 Hz) [102]. Precisely for this reason, we had to use the large angle
Bragg beams to perform in-situ momentum analysis3 .

3.2.2

Measuring Bogoliubov amplitudes

To measure the Bogoliubov amplitude, we kept the probe frequency ∆ωp fixed at
94 kHz, which was chosen to resonantly detect free atoms with +q momentum (bykicking them into the −Q + q momentum state). The excitation frequency ∆ωe wastuned to excite phonons, and the atoms out-coupled to the −Q+q states were counted
as a measure of the phonon amplitude. As shown in Fig. 3-4, two resonances were
found in the scanning of ∆ωe (one positive and one negative) corresponding to the3This subtlety is revisited in Chapter 5.

44

-q-Q
-Q
+q-Q

0
+q

+q+Q
+Q
-q+Q

(a)
(b)
(c)

(d)

Figure 3-3: Momentum distribution of a condensate with phonons: After the small
angle Bragg beams excited +q phonons into the condensate, the large angle Bragg
beams probed the momentum distribution. Absorption images after 40 ms time offlight in (a), (b), and (c) show the condensate in the center and outcoupled atoms
to the right and left for probe frequencies of 94, 100, and 107 kHz, respectively. The
small clouds centered at +q are phonons which were converted into free particles. The
size of the images is 25×2.2 mm. (d) The outlined region in (a) - (c) is magnified,and clearly shows outcoupled atoms with momenta Q±q, which implies that phonons
with wavevector q/~ have both +q and −q free particle momentum components.

45

phonon excitations at two momenta +q and −q that contained u2q and vq2 units of free
atoms in +q state.
The relative heights of the two peaks gives the ratio of u2q /vq2 , which increases
as q/ps = q/(Mcs ) is increased. Due to limited optical access, it was difficult for
us to change the phonon momentum q, which required changing the angle between
the small angle Bragg beams. Instead, we performed the same measurement forcondensates at peak densities 1.0 × 1014 cm−3 and 0.5 × 1014 cm−3 , which correspondto the speed of sound cs = 5 mm/s and 3.5 mm/s respectively. The result is consistent
with the Bogoliubov theory calculation (dashed lines in Fig. 3-4. Somewhat later, adifferent group was able to map out the entire excitation spectrum by varying theangle between the exciting beams [103, 104].

3.3

Coherent collision and four-wave mixing

The long range coherence of BEC in the context of atom optics is analogous to thatof laser, which prompted the term atom laser. In the same context, the interaction
terms in the Hamiltonian (2.2) are identical to the four-wave mixing Hamiltonian in
non-linear optics:
HFWM ∝ a†3 a†4 a1 a2(3.3)

This led to the matter-wave mixing experiments with BEC, which was first reported
in 1999 [38]. The second experiment described in this Chapter was the effort by
our lab based on the same idea. Due to the much larger size of our condensate, amaximum gain in excess of 20 was observed which implied an approximate dual Fockstate [105].

3.3.1

Experimental setup and time sequenceFig. 3-5 shows the setup of four Bragg beams used as atomic beamsplitters. The
condensate was initially in mode 1 (zero momentum state). The beams 1 and 2 werepulsed for 20 µs to seed mode 3 with about 1 to 2 % of total atoms. Subsequently,

46

x10 3
Number of Out-coupled Atoms

(a)

40
30
20
10
0
-1000

-500

0

500

1000

Excitation Frequency [Hz](b)
Number of Out-coupled Atoms

x10

3

120
100
80
60
40
20
0
-1000

-500

0

500

1000

Excitation Frequency [Hz]Figure 3-4: Bogoliubov amplitudes of phonons in a BEC: The relative height of thetwo peaks reflect the ratio of u2q /vq2 , which increases as p/ps increases. (a) and (b)are data for condensates at peak densities of 1.0 × 1014 cm−3 (cs = 5 mm/s) and
1.0 × 1014 cm−3 (cs = 5 mm/s) respectively.

47

the beams 1 and 3 were pulsed for 40 µs to split half of the condensate into mode
2. The three waves then underwent four-wave mixing, during which the seed wave
and its conjugate (mode 4) grew exponentially while the source waves (mode 1 and
2) became depleted. In order to observe the amplification in mode 3 and 4 in-situ, a
40 µs readout pulse was used to couple out a (fixed) fraction of the atoms in mode 3
and 4 at various points during the four-wave mixing. These “read-out” atoms did not
mix with the other waves as phase-matching condition (i.e. energy and momentum
conservation was no longer satisfied. The All Bragg pulses were applied when thecondensate was held in the magnetic trap whose radial and axial trap frequencies are
80 and 20 Hz respectively. After the readout pulse, the magnetic trap was shut off
and absorption images were taken after 43 ms time-of-flight, as shown in Fig. 3-6.

3.3.2

Bogoliubov approach for four-wave mixing

Assuming the initial source waves 1 and 2 remain dominant over the entire processof the wave mixing, we can adopt a similar approximation as the Bogoliubov theory
and retain in the Hamiltonian (2.2) only terms containing a1,2 and a†1,2 :H =X ~2 k 2 †
i
ai ai
2M
i

2g
g † †
(a1 a1 a1 a1 + a†2 a†2 a2 a2 ) + a†1 a†2 a1 a2
2VV
X 2g † †(a a ai aj + c.c)+V 1 2i,j6=1,2
X 2g † †+(a1 ai a1 ai + a†2 a†i a2 ai )V
i6=1,2

+

48

(3.4)

ω + ∆ωsk + ∆ks(a)2
ω − ∆ωrk − ∆kr4

BECω + ∆ω1k + ∆k1

ωk1

3

Imaging Axis
(b)

(c)

kr' = k4 + ∆kr

k4 = k1 + k2-k3

k1 = 0k2 = ∆k1

k1

k2
k3

k3 = ∆ks

kr = k3 + ∆kr
Figure 3-5: (Color) Bragg beams setup for four wave mixing: (a) The beam 1 waspaired up with the beams 2, 3 and 4 sequentially to split the atoms into source waves,seed wave and then read out the growth in the seed and source waves. The detunings
were set to satisfy the resonant Bragg condition. (b) and (c) show the initial waves
and the subsequent four-wave mixing including the readout.

49

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

Figure 3-6: Time-of-flight images of atomic four-wave mixing: (a) Only a 1 % seed waspresent (barely visible). (b) only the two source waves were created and the collisions
result in a s-wave halo. (c) All three waves were present and the four-wave mixing
greatly enhanced the number of atoms in the seed and its conjugate waves. The whitecross marks the location of the initial condensate. (d) and (e) are examples of thereadout pulses coupling out a small fraction of the seed and its conjugate waves. The
readout pulses were 40 µs in order to take a “snapshot” of the amplification, resulting
in off-resonant out-coupling to other wave packets indicated by the white arrows. Our
signal is in the dashed square boxes. The time of flight is 43 ms.

50

2

where g = 4π~M as . We further neglect the depletion of the source waves and treat a1,2
and a†1,2 as complex numbers that evolve as:pN1pe−iω2 t a2 (0) = e−iω2 t N2
~2 k12+ µ1 + 2µ2
2M~2 k22+ µ2 + 2µ12MgNi ) i = 1, 2Va1 (t) = e−iω1 t a1 (0) = e−iω1 t(3.5)

a2 (t) =

(3.6)

~ω1 =
~ω2 =
µi =

(3.7)
(3.8)
(3.9)

where N1 and N2 are the number of atoms in the source modes 1 and 2, assumed tobe constant for the duration of the wave mixing.
The equations of motion for mode 3 and 4 are:da3g
= ~ω3 a3 + 2 a1 a2 a†4
dt
V
da4
g
i~
= ~ω4 a4 + 2 a1 a2 a†3
dtV2~2 k3,4+ 2µ1 + 2µ2~ω3,4 =
2Mi~

(3.10)(3.11)(3.12)

With a change of variable:â3,4 = eiω3,4 t a3,4

(3.13)

Eqs. (3.10) and (3.11) simplify to:dâ3√= 2 µ1 µ2 ei∆ωt â†4
dt
dâ4
√
i~
= 2 µ1 µ2 ei∆ωt â†3dt~∆ω = ~(ω3 + ω4 − ω1 − ω2 )~2 k32 ~2 k42 ~2 k12 ~2 k22+−−+ µ1 + µ2
=
2M
2M
2M
2M
i~

51

(3.14)(3.15)(3.16)(3.17)

which can be solved to give:√
2 µ1 µ2 †λ1 eλ2 tλ2 eλ1 tâ3 (0) + i+â (0)â3 (t) =λ2 − λ1 λ1 − λ2~(λ2 − λ1 ) 4
√
2 µ1 µ2 †λ2 eλ1 t
λ1 eλ2 tâ4 (t) =+â4 (0) + iâ (0)
λ2 − λ1 λ1 − λ2~(λ2 − λ1 ) 3!
r
1
16µ1 µ2i∆ω ±− ∆ω 2
λ1,2 =
2~2
(3.18)(3.19)(3.20)

Since we initially have Nseed atoms in mode 3 and no atoms in mode 4, the above
solutions (3.18) and (3.19) give the time evolution of N3 and N4 :√2
2
2 µ1 µ2i∆ωsinh(λt) Nseed +sinh(λt)hN̂3 (t)i = cosh(λt) −
2λ
~λ
√
2
2 µ1 µ2
hN̂4 (t)i =sinh(λt) (Nseed + 1)~λr
4µ1 µ2 ∆ω 2
−
λ =
~2
4

(3.21)(3.22)(3.23)√
When ~∆ω < 4 µ1 µ2 , both N3 and N4 grow exponentially together at the growth√rate λ; when ~∆ω > 4 µ1 µ2 , the cosh and sinh functions become cos and sin and N3
and N4 become oscillatory instead. The maximum growth rate λ is achieved whenthe energy mismatch ∆ω = 0 as expected.
In our experiment, the Bragg beams were set up to minimize the energy mismatch(Fig. 3-5). The number of atoms out-coupled by the readout pulse in our experimentindeed showed an initial exponential growth, which leveled off after a couple of hundred microseconds when the source waves became significantly depleted, as shown in
Fig. 3-7.

3.3.3

Dual Fock state and Heisenberg-limited interferometry

In quantum mechanics, the evolution of any dynamic system can be thought of as
the accumulation of phase differences among various eigenstates. Interferometry is
the class of measurement based on interfering two (or more) alternative dynamic
paths and mapping the cumulative phase difference between the paths into some52

Growth of Seed Wave

(a)
12

8
µ = 4.4 kHz

4µ = 2.2 kHz

1
0
0

200
400
Amplification Time [µs]600Growth of Fourth Wave(b)8

µ = 4.4kHz4µ = 2.2kHz
0
0

200
400
Amplification Time [µs]600

Figure 3-7: The correlated exponential growth of seed wave and its conjugate: The
growth of (a) the seed wave in mode 3 and (b) its conjugate in mode 4. The growthrate is determined by the meanfield energy [Eq. (3.21) and (3.22)]. The atom counts(in the dashed square boxes in Fig. 3-6) are normalized by the initial value for the seedwave. The solid and dashed lines are fits to the initial growth according to Eq. (3.21)
and (3.22), which give growth rates of (170 µs)−1 and (100 µs)−1 respectively.

53

sort of time-dependent intensity, thereby obtaining the eigenenergies4 . The quantum
nature of light or particle waves gives rise to shot noise in the intensity measurement.
Typically, the intensity of a classical wave has a Poissonian fluctuation:
√

∆N ∼

N

(3.24)

where N is the total counts corresponding to the integrated intensity within themeasurement window5 . Therefore, the accuracy of the phase (and frequency) mea√
surement is also subject to this 1/ N shot noise.
In principle, if the states involved in the interferometry are squeezed in amplitude[105], the phase measurement resolution should only be limited by the total number
count N [106]:
∆φ ∼

1
N

(3.25)

which is called the Heisenberg limit. Various schemes based on such non-classicalsqueezed states have been proposed over the year. In particular, one class of schemes
require the use of dual Fock state which is of the form:
|ψi =

X
N

cN |N, Ni(3.26)

where the occupation in a pair of (input) modes are identical [40, 41, 107, 42].
In our experiment, due to the initial seed Nseed in mode 3, the number difference
between mode 3 and 4 is not exactly zero, but does stay constant – N̂3 − N̂4 commuteswith the Hamiltonian (3.4):|ψ ′ i =∆(N3 − N4 ) ∼
4

X

N,N ′

p

c| N3 = N, N4 = N ′ i

Nseed(3.27)(3.28)

It is the energy difference to be exact, as a global energy offset leads to a global phase that is
not physically observable.
5
The inverse of measurement (time) window determines the bandwidth for the measurement ofintensity variation, from which the eigen frequency is calculated.

54

Therefore, a gain of 20 implies a squeezing factor of√

40. However, it should be

noted that such squeezing is only true because we have ignored the secondary terms
in the Hamiltonian (3.4) which correspond to secondary collisions that would degrade
the squeezing factor. This limitation is in principle a technical one – as long as themeanfield gain factor λ1,2 are sufficiently large, the compromising effect of secondary
collisions could be suppressed. In addition, mode selectivity that enhances the gainin the desired modes would eliminate the need for the initial seed. Mode selectivity
in optics is typically achieved by cavities. In case of atoms, the analog of which foratoms are atomic waveguides [108, 109, 110, 111, 112]. Similarly, extreme geometries
could also lead to some mode selectivity [94].

55Chapter 4
Quantum degenerate molecules
This chapter discusses two experiments studying the formation and decay of ultracold
molecules produced from an atomic condensate using a magnetic Feshbach resonance:• K. Xu, T. Mukaiyama, J.R. Abo-Shaeer, J.K. Chin, D.E. Miller, and W. Ketterle Formation of Quantum-Degnerate Sodium Molecules, Phys. Rev. Lett.
91, 210402 (2003). Included in Appendix C.
• T. Mukaiyama, J.R. Abo-Shaeer, K. Xu, J.K. Chin, and W. Ketterle, Dissociation and Decay of Ultracold Sodium Molecules, Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 180402(2004). Included in Appendix D.
One of the first interesting discoveries about ultracold atomic gases is the observation of Feshbach resonances [56, 57, 113]. Because of the low temperature and narrow
kinetic energy spread of the cloud, the highest bound states of the two-body potential could be tuned very close to the unbound colliding states, resulting in resonant
scattering. It was immediately suggested as a way to vary the interaction strength in
BEC, which proved to be more difficult in practice due to the strong inelastic collision
losses near the Feshbach resonance [58]. In past three years, however, much progresshas been made in a different way of using the resonances, namely creating ultracold
molecule samples from an atomic condensate (or a degenerate Fermi gas).
Molecules, due to their complicated internal level structure, are difficult to coolusing the conventional laser cooling techniques, which are typically the precursor to56

evaporative cooling in order to reach quantum degeneracy. Alternative techniquessuch as buffer gas loading [114], Stark deceleration [115] or cavity cooling [116] havebeen successful to some extent, but still fall short of achieving the requisite phasespace density for BEC. Feshbach resonances provided a solution to convert ultracold atoms into molecules thereby circumventing the problem of directly cooling themolecules.
This Chapter describes the efforts in our lab to create and study ultracold (quantum degenerate) molecules using a Feshbach resonance. Although such molecules
are short-lived due to inelastic collisions, we were able to use them to experimentally probe the coupling between the atomic and molecular states that underlies the
Feshbach resonance.

4.1

Magnetic Feshbach resonanceI start this Chapter by making explicit the general formalism of resonant scattering phenomena in Chapter 2 as applied to the specific case of inducing a Feshbachresonance with an external magnetic field. Fig. 4-1 illustrates the typical situation.
The collision channel (red) and bound state channel (green) are each labeled by theatom pair’s hyperfine configuration in the far distance limit, denoted as |ci and |bi
respectively. At zero field, the continuum thresholds of these channels are separated
according to the atomic hyperfine structure. Each channel has a Born-Oppenheimer
potential associated with it, which gives rise to a discrete set of bound states.
When a magnetic field is applied, the potentials of two channels with different
magnetic moment can be shifted with respect to each other, along with their continuum threshold and bound states. Suppose this is the case for channels |ci and |bi,
whose magnetic moment difference is:∆µ = µb − µc(4.1)

Then it is possible to shift one of the highest bound states of channel |bi (typically a
57

(ii)
(i)
∆ε
=∆µ(Β−Β0)Continuum Threshold

Figure 4-1: (Color) Magnetic feshbach resonance: Color red represents the unboundcollision channel and color green represents the bound state channel. Shaded area
represents the colliding continuum. ∆ǫ is the energy separation between the boundstate and continuum threshold (in a condensate, atoms lie very close to the threshold),
tunable by the magnetic field B. The bound state is degenerate with the thresholdat B0 . For the purpose of illustration, the potentials are not drawn to actual scale.

58

couple of gigahertz below the threshold) close to the continuum threshold of channel|ci. If there is a coupling between the two channels, the resonant scattering behavior
would occur.
Since ∆µ/h ∼ 1 MHz/G, a magnetic field B0 . 1000 G would be sufficient to
induce such a magnetic Feshbach resonance, which is indeed the case for the Feshbachresonance experiments in 23 Na. For heavier atoms such as 87 Rb and 133 Cs that havelarger hyperfine splittings, even lower magnetic field is required to induce Feshbachresonances [113, 117].
Eq. 2.33 is typically rewritten in a dispersive form [73]:as (B) =
a(bg)
∆B =
s

4.2

a(bg)
s


1−

∆B
B − B0MV|hc|W |bi|224π~ ∆µ

(4.2)
(4.3)

Experimental setup and time sequence

The main components of the experiment is illustrated in Fig. 4-2, along with the time
sequence for creating and detecting the molecules. The optical dipole trap had anaxial trap frequency ωz = 2π × 2.2 Hz and radial trap frequencies ωx,y = 2π × 290 Hz,
which gave Thomas-Fermi radii of Rz = 650 µm and Rx,y = 5 µm and a peak densityof 1.7 × 1014 cm−3 for a condensate of 5 × 106 23 Na atoms.
The Feshbach resonance used for molecule formation is at about B0 = 907 G,
corresponding to the resonant collision between atoms in the lowest hyperfine state|mS = −1/2, mI = +3/2i which connects to the |F = 1, mF = +1i state at zero
field. An adiabatic radio-frequency sweep was applied to transfer all the atoms fromthe initial |F = 1, mF = −1i state into the |F = 1, mF = +1i state. Since the truebound state exists below B0 , we first ramped the field to just under B0 with the smallcoils adding about 10 G magnetic field opposite to the high field direction, and thenswitched off the small coils to jump across the resonance quickly (∼ 1 µs). At thispoint, the (quasi) bound state was above the continuum threshold. The magnetic
field was subsequently ramped back down across the resonance. Due to the atom59

molecule coupling, part of the atomic population was transferred into the molecularstate following the Landau-Zener avoided crossing.
A “blast” light pulse (20 µs) was applied in the radial direction to quickly remove
the remnant atoms, in order to minimize the inelastic collision between the molecules
and atoms which would lead to the heating and loss of molecules. The magnetic field
was sufficiently detuned from the resonance so that only the atoms were resonantwith the blast pulse while the molecules were largely transparent due to the smallFrank-Condon factor and remained intact.
After some time of flight, we ramped the magnetic field back up in 100 µs andmoved the molecular state into the continuum, which again became a quasi-boundstate. The molecules were quickly dissociated into free atoms and then imaged at
the high field. The imaging occurred 500 µs after the dissociation which was shortenough to ensure that the spatial extent of the cloud reflected mostly the momentum
distribution of the molecules, which could be used to define a nominal “temperature”.

4.3

Quantum degenerate molecules

The slower the ramp down speed, the more atoms should be converted into molecules.
However, the inelastic collision loss is greatly enhanced near the Feshbach resonance.
In a slow ramp, the molecule atom mixture spends too much time near the resonanceand most of the molecules are lost to relaxation into deeper bound states.
Fig. 4-3 shows the situation for different ramp speeds with or without the “blast”
pulse to remove the remnant atoms. Based on the estimation of Landau-Zener factor,
the “ideal” conversion efficiencies for ramping the magnetic field by 10 G in 50 µs,
200 µs, 1 ms and 4 ms are 5 %, 20 %, 60 % and 98 % respectively. However, due tothe inelastic collisions with the atoms, slow ramps did not produce more molecules
than a fast ramp followed by a “blast” pulse, in which case the molecules were alsosignificant “colder”.
In fact, these molecules appeared so cold in time-of-flight that we suspected theymight be quantum degenerate – Fig. 4-4. A quantitative analysis of the phase space60

Blast Beam

Large Bias Coils ( ~ 900G )Small Bias Coils ( ~ 10 G )IR Optical Trap

BEC

B
a<0

(iii)

(i)

(vi)
(iv)

(v)

913 G
907 G
903 G

Blast

a>0

(ii)

(vii)

Optical Trap On

TOF

Imaging
Time

Figure 4-2: (Color) Optical trap and magnetic field coils: The large coils provide
most of the magnetic field. They are ramped up during stage (i) and kept a constantlevel actively stabilized by a feedback servo. During (ii) through (vii), the small coils
provide the fast field switch/ramp for jumping over the Feshbach resonance, ramping
back down (creating molecules) and then ramping back up (dissociating and detecting
molecules).

61

(a)

(b)

50 µs

200 µs

1 ms

4 ms

5 6 7 892(c)

Molecule Number

150x103100
50
0
5 6 7 89

100

2

3

4

3

4

1000
Ramp Time [ms]Figure 4-3: Molecule formation for various ramp speeds of magnetic field: During agiven time, the magnetic field was ramped by 10 G. (a) and (b) are the absorption
images taken after 14 ms time-of-flight. The molecules (bottom) were radially separated from the atoms (top) by a field gradient of 2.8 G/cm. (a) Without applying the“blast” pulse, the atoms remained in the trap. (b) With the “blast” pulse, the atoms
were quickly removed after the field ramp. (c) Number of molecules as a function of
ramp time for (a) (open circles) and (b) (closed circles).

62density could be obtained by counting the molecules and calculating the peak density
based on the trap geometry, in addition to fitting the time-of-flight images to obtainthe momentum distribution (see details in [118]). Our analysis confirmed that thepeak phase space density exceeded 20, which is significantly above the critical valueof 2.6 for an ideal Bose gas.

4 ms

6 ms

8 ms

10 ms

12 ms

14 ms

16 ms

18 ms

20 ms

Figure 4-4: Ballistic expansion of a pure molecular cloud: These are the absorption
images of molecular clouds (reconverted into free atoms) taken after various times offlight. The expansion velocity corresponds to a temperature of ∼ 30 nK. The images
were taken along the long weak axis of the optical dipole trap and the field of view is
3.0 mm×0.7 mm.

Despite the high phase space density which indicated quantum degeneracy, we
stopped short of calling these molecules “molecular BEC” because the high inelastic
collision rate quickly heated the cloud in a few milliseconds even at a density lessthan 4 × 1012 cm−3 , as shown in Fig. 4-5. This lifetime is much shorter than the axial
trap frequency of the optical trap, making it impossible to reach any (quasi) thermal
equilibrium, which we believed to be a reasonable requirement for BEC. Somewhat
later, molecular BEC’s were realized in ultracold Fermi gases [119, 120, 121]. The
6

Li2 BEC exhibited remarkably long lifetimes near the broad Feshbach resonance63[119, 121], which was attributed to Fermi statistics [122]. In 40 K2 [120], however,the “BEC” was produced in a few milliseconds and only radial equilibrium could beachieved, which was similar to our situation. A notable difference is that for Fermi
clouds, the ramp speed of the magnetic field could not have been as short as 50 µs as
the initial atomic cloud had at most unity phase space density. For an atomic BEC,
the molecules simply inherit the initial zero center-of-mass motion of the atom pairs.

Phase Space Density

(a)

2

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

(f)

10
4
2

1
4
2

0.1
0

5

10

15

20

Hold Time [ms]Figure 4-5: Molecular phase space density vs. hold time: (a) The phase space densitiesof the molecules decreases significantly after a few milliseconds holding in the optical
trap. (b - c) are the absorption images of the molecular clouds after (b) 0 ms, (c)2 ms, (d) 5 ms, (e) 10 ms, (f) 20 ms hold time in the trap. The field of view is
0.8 mm×0.8 mm.

4.4

Molecule dissociation

If after the molecule formation and the removal of the remnant atoms, we immediately dissociate the molecules with a reverse field ramp before the time of flight,
the added dissociation energy will appear in addition to the initial kinetic energy ofthe molecules. Intuitively, the dissociation rate is proportional to the atom-molecule
coupling strength |hc|W |bi|2 in Eq. (4.3). For a given coupling strength, the faster64

the ramp speed of the magnetic field, the deeper the quasi-bound state would moveinto the continuum before the molecules were fully dissociated. Therefore the (mean)dissociation energy as a function of the ramp speed can be a direct measure of theatom-molecule coupling strength.

4.4.1

Fermi’s golden rule

More specifically, for the s-wave molecular state involved in the Feshbach resonance,
the coupling is predominantly to the s-wave unbound states. In the low momentum
limit, the coupling strength:|hc|W |bi|2 =

4π~2 ∆µ (bg)
as ∆B
MV

(4.4)

is essentially a constant proportional to the Frank-Condon factor between the boundstate and the zero momentum (threshold) state.
The dissociation rate is given by the Fermi’s golden rule [71]:Γdiss = D(ǫ) |hc|W |bi|2
 3/2
VM
D(ǫ) =
ǫ1/2
2
(2π)
~2

(4.5)
(4.6)

where D(ǫ) is the density of states at the kinetic energy ǫ in the center-of-mass frame,
corresponding to atom pairs with kinetic energy ǫ/2 in the lab frame.
Let m(ǫ) be the molecular population which is unity at ǫ = 0 (at the continuum
threshold). As the magnetic field is ramped up and ǫ increases at the rate ∆µ|Ḃ|,
the molecules dissociate into atoms at a rate given by (4.5):dm(ǫ)Γdiss m(ǫ)
dm(ǫ)
= −
(dǫ/dt)−1 = −dǫdt∆µ|Ḃ|= −Cǫ1/2 m(ǫ)r(bg)
2as ∆B M
C =
~2
~|Ḃ|

65

(4.7)

which can be solved for m(ǫ):2

m(ǫ) = e− 3 Cǫ

3/2

(4.8)

Finally, the mean dissociation energy is given by:

δE =

Z ∞
0

ǫ
[−dm(ǫ)] = 0.591
2r~2 ~|Ḃ|
M 2a(bg)
∆B
s

!2/3

(4.9)

Note that Eq. (4.9) shows that the dissociation is proportional to the 2/3-powerof the field ramp speed |Ḃ|, and the proportionality constant contains no other free(bg)

parameters aside from as∆B. Fig. (4-6) shows our data, from which we obtained(bg)
a fit value of as ∆B = 3.64 G nm.

The know theoretical calculations agreed with

our measurement to within 10 % [123, 124].

Dissociation Energy δE / kB [µK]

6
5
4
3
2
1
0
0

50

100

150

200

Ramp Rate [G/ms]

Figure 4-6: Dissociation energy for different ramp speeds for 23 Na dimers: The solid(bg)line corresponds to the (slightly larger) theory value of as ∆B for ∆B = 0.98 G and(bg)
as = 3.4 nm [123, 124]. The dotted line is a fit curve with the fitting parameter(bg)
as ∆B = 3.64 G nm.

Shortly after the publication of our result, Rempe group in Germany performed thesame measurement of Feshbach resonance widths for 87 Rb [125]. Their measurement
66

was done more carefully for resonances as narrow as 1 mG, as shown in Fig. 4-7 andTable 4.1. It is worth noting that the field stability for their experiment is 4 mG
(which is in fact excellent for such high magnetic fields), so any static method would
not have the resolution to resolve the narrow Feshbach resonances. In contrast, thedynamic method based on molecule dissociation maps the resonance width into alarge kinetic energy spread, which corresponds to a large magnetic field range where
the molecules dissociate. This is somewhat analogous to the situation of large ∆kBragg spectroscopy discussed in Section 3.1.
Bres (G)
632
685
912
1007

∆Bfit (mG)
1.3(2)
6.2(6)
1.3(2)
210(20)∆Bth (mG)
1.5
17
1.3
170(30)

Table 4.1: Position Bres and width ∆B of the Feshbach resonances for 87 Rb: ∆Bfit is
the best-fit value obtained from the measurement in Fig. 4-7. ∆Bth is the theoreticalprediction from Ref. [117]. This Table is taken from [125].

4.4.2

Shape resonance

For narrow resonances such as in 87 Rb, it is possible to ramp the magnetic field fastenough across the resonance (without significant dissociation in the process) to a particular value of ǫ and measure the dissociation rate of the molecules at that particularpoint in the continuum. This is demonstrated in the ring-shaped dissociated cloud in[125].
However as mentioned earlier, for s-wave molecules, the dissociation rate is almost
independent of ǫ [Eq. (4.4)] as the quasi-bound state couples mostly to the s-wave freestates which is almost uniform in short distances. The situation changes for rotating
molecules [126, 127] which can couple strongly to the d, g, i, · · · -waves (p, f, h, · · · waves are prohibited due to bosonic symmetry). As illustrated in Fig. 4-8, the centrifugal barrier gives rise to quasi-bound d, g, i, · · · -waves that have large amplitudes
in short distances. When the molecular state is tuned near these quasi-bound waves,67Figure 4-7: Dissociation energy for different ramp speeds for 87 Rb dimers: The four
Feshbach resonances of 87 Rb are much narrower than the one we measured for 23 Na,
and could not have been measured accurately with static methods. This figure istaken from [125].

68

the dissociation rate is enhanced and no longer uniform. Such phenomenon is calleda shape resonance and was observed in 87 Rb [127].

Continuum Threshold

Figure 4-8: (Color) Magnetic shape resonance: The two-body potential includes
the centrifugal part due to the finite angular momentum. A quasi-bound state hasstronger overlap with the bound state in short distances than the other continuum
states, resulting in a stronger decay rate when the bound state is tuned close to thequasi-bound state. For the purpose of illustration, the potentials are not drawn to
actual scale.

69

Chapter 5
Bose-Einstein condensates in
optical lattices
This chapter discusses two experiments with condensates in optical lattices:• K. Xu, Y. Liu, J.R. Abo-Shaeer, T. Mukaiyama, J.K. Chin, D.E. Miller, and W.
Ketterle, Sodium Bose-Einsteain condensates in an optical lattice, Phys. Rev.
A 72, 043604 (2005). Included in Appendix E.
• K. Xu, Y. Liu, D.E. Miller, J.K. Chin, W. Setiawan, and W. Ketterle, Observation of Strong Quantum Depletion in a Gaseous Bose-Einstein Condensate,
preprint: cond-mat/0601184 (submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett). Included inAppendix F.
In recent years, optical lattices have become an important tool in the study ofstrongly correlated systems with ultracold atomic gases. The interference of two fardetuned laser beams forms a periodic optical potential called optical lattice. Simply
by changing the lattice beam intensity, one can vary the interaction strength as wellas the tunneling rate. In addition, the well-developed band theory for condensed
matter systems is readily applicable to BEC in an optical lattice, providing powerfultools for theoretical investigations.
Earlier experiments usually involved a one dimensional optical lattice and observing the time-of-flight interference pattern and the collective motion of the condensate
70along the direction of the lattice beam. The single-particle band structure was manifest as an enhanced effective mass for small velocities [128, 129] and Bloch oscillation
for larger velocities [130]. For a very deep lattice, some evidence of number squeezing
due to the atomic interaction was observed [59]. Somewhat later, two and three dimensional lattices were applied which led to the discoveries of more interesting states.
The quantum phase transition from a superfluid state to a Mott-insulator was firstobserved in a 87 Rb condensate [131, 60]. Massive entanglement was achieved via
controlled coherent collision in a Mott-insulator [61]. Tonk-Girardeau regime was
explored in one dimensional quantum gases confined in a two dimensional lattice[62, 63, 132, 133]. The inelastic collision loss of Feshbach molecules (see Chapter4) could be suppressed in a Mott-insulator, enabling the study of coherent molecule
formation and dissociation [64, 65, 66]. As described in this Chapter, we recently
studied the quantum depletion in an optical lattice, mapping out the intermediate
regime between gaseous BECs and quantum fluids such as superfluid liquid helium[67].
I start this chapter with a review of some useful results from the band structure
theory relevant to understanding most of the experiments involving ultracold atoms
in an optical lattice. I then proceed to discussing the two published results, mainly
focusing on a few subtleties not fully discussed in the papers. The rest of this Chapter
is devoted to a detailed account of the technical issues encountered in setting up the
optical lattice and the ways in which we worked around them. This is intended as a
future reference for posterity in the lab.

5.1

Bosons in lattice potential

To avoid confusion, d-dimensional lattice refers to having d (orthogonal) standing
waves with the other (3 − d) dimensions free of lattice beams (d = 1, 2, or 3). Thisshould be differentiated from a d-dimensional gas in an optical lattice which is usuallyachieved by having (3−d) very deep lattices to “freeze out” (3−d) degrees of freedom.
For simplicity, all lattice beams are assumed to have the same wavelength λL and to71

be orthogonal with respect to each other.

5.1.1

Bose-Hubbard model

Including the lattice potential UL (x), the Hamiltonian (2.1) now reads:
N

N
X

1X
U(xi − xj )H =hi +2 i,j=1
i=0
h = −

~2 2
∇ + UL (x)(+Uex (x))
2M

(5.1)
(5.2)

where Uex is other slow-varying potentials such as the atom trap. UL (x) is has a spatial
periodicity of aL = λL /2 in each dimension with a pair of lattice beams present.
A natural unit for energies is the photon recoil energy defined as:~2 kL2
2M
2π
=
λL
π
=
aL

ER =
kL

(5.3)

(5.4)

The single particle Hamiltonian h (without Uex ) is invariant under translation of aLin the lattice direction – say ẑ:UL,z (z) =uLER (1 − cos 2kL z)
2

(5.5)

where uL is the lattice depth measure in units of ER . It follows from Bloch theorem
that the eigenstates of h can be chosen to have definite quasi-momenta q and form aband structure:
φq,n (x + aL ẑ) = eiqaL φq,n (x)(5.6)φq,n (x) is called the Bloch function and n = 0, 1, 2, ... labels the different energy bandsh   iin increasing order. Since exp i a2πL aL = 1, physically distinct q should span arange no more than 2kL . Typically this range is defined as [−kL , +kL) – called thefirst Brillouin zone. kL defines a natural unit for quasi-momenta.
72

Once again I choose to work with a quantization volume V with periodic boundary
conditions:
V = (aL NL )d L3−d(5.7)

where the lengths along the d lattice dimensions are chosen to be integer multiples ofaL and NL is the number of lattice sites along each lattice dimension.
It is useful to develop an intuitive feel for how the band structure should look like.
Fig. 5-1 shows the band structures for various lattice depths. The free particle case(uL = 0) is simply obtained from the quadratic kinetic energy:
2qEq,nj = ER 2j +kL
j = 0, ±1, ±2, ...
 2|j| − 1 if qj > 0 or q = 0, j > 0nj = 2|j|
if j = 0 or qj < 0 or q = 0, j < 0


(5.8)

where Eq,nj is the eigenenergy corresponding to the nj th band at quasi-momentum
q. The Bloch functions in this case are simply the plane waves |φq,nj i = |2jkL + qi.
At finite lattice depths, UL couples only the plane waves at the same quasimomentum. In fact, due to its sinusoidal form (5.5), the only non-zero matrix elements due to UL are:uL2
uLh2(j + 1)kL + q|UL |2jkL + qi = −4
h2jkL + q|UL |2jkL + qi =(5.9)
(5.10)

Gaps open up near the center and the edges of the Brillouin zone where different
bands meet, causing avoided crossings. The deeper the lattice, the flatter the bands.
In the limit of completely flat bands (zero tunneling, see discussion below), the bands
are separated by the local harmonic trap frequency at each lattice site.
In some cases, it is more convenient to work with a different set of orthonormal

73

12

Eq,n [ER]

8

4

0
−1

−0.6

−0.2

0.2

0.6

1

q [kL]

Figure 5-1: Band structure of an optical lattice: The first few energy bands for 0 ER
(solid lines), 5 ER (dashed lines), 10 ER (dotted lines).

basis called Wannier functions [134]:
ws,n (x) = √1 X
φq,n (x)e−isaL q
NL q(5.11)

ws,n are localized wavepackets at the sth lattice site (s = 0, ±1, ±2, ..., ±NL /2) andhave identical forms except a spatial offset:
ws,n (x + saL ẑ) = w0,n (x) = wn (x)(5.12)In the limit of very deep lattices, ws,n approach the wavefunctions of a harmonic
oscillator – for the typical experimental conditions, however, ws,n are more delocalized.
The Bloch states can be expanded in ws,n basis:
1 X
φq,n (x) = √ws,n(x)eisaL q
NL q

74

(5.13)

Adopting the second quantization notations, (5.1) can be rewritten as:XH =s1 ,n1 ,s2 ,n2= +hs2 , n2 |h|s1 , n1 ia†s2 ,n2 as1 ,n1

1 X
hs3 , n3 , s4 , n4 |U|s1 , n1 , s2 , n2 ia†s4 ,n4 a†s3 ,n3 as1 ,n1 as2 ,n2 (5.14)
2 s1 ,n1 ,s2 ,n2
s3 ,n3 ,s4 ,n4|s, ni refers to ws,n . Note that because of (5.12), we have:hs, n|h|s, ni =ZVdx wn∗ (x)hwn (x)= ǫnZdx wn∗ (x + ∆saL ẑ)hwn (x)hs + ∆s, n|h|s, ni =(5.15)

V= −Jn (∆s)
Z
hs, n, s, n|U|s, n, s, ni = g
dx |wn (x)|4(5.16)

V= Un(5.17)

We call ǫn the offset energy, Jn (∆s) the tunneling rate between sites separated by ∆ssites, and Un the onsite interaction energy – for the nth band.
The typical temperature in the BEC experiments is much lower than the gap
between the lowest band and the first excited band ǫ1 − ǫ0 . Therefore one can retainin (5.14) only the terms involving the lowest band (n = 0). Due to the localized
nature of the Wannier functions, the tunneling rate J0 (∆s) between non-adjacentsites for a lattice of a few ER deep is much smaller compared with that between
adjacent sites (see Fig. 5-2). Therefore, one can keep only the tunneling rate between
nearest neighbors J0 = J0 (±1). Finally, because of the small spatial overlap between
the Wannier functions, one can ignore the interaction terms hs3 , 0, s4, 0|U|s1 , 0, s2 , 0i
where si ’s are not the same. The resulted approximate Hamiltonian is called theBose-Hubbard model [135, 136, 137, 131]:
H = −JX|s−s′ |=1

1 X
a†s′ as + Un̂s (n̂s − 1)2
s75

(5.18)

where n̂s = a†s as and we have dropped the subscript 0 from J0 and U0 .

J(1) / J(2)

80

60

40

20
5

6

7
8
Lattice Depth [ER]910

Figure 5-2: Tunneling ratio: The ratio between J0 (1) (nearest neighbors) and J0 (2)(next nearest neighbors) is plotted as a function of the lattice depth. For lattice depths
greater than 5 ER , the tunneling between nearest neighbors essentially determines thedispersion curve (see discussion in Section 5.1.3).

Finally, if there is an external trapping potential [Uex Eq. (5.2)], an extra term:
Hex =

X

ǫex n̂s(5.19)

dx w0∗ (x)Uex (x)w0 (x)(5.20)

s

ǫex =

Z

V

should be added to (5.18).

5.1.2

Shallow lattice

For a shallow lattice (uL . 1), the Bloch states can be calculated by treating thelattice potential as a perturbation. In particular, for the lowest band φq (x) = φq,0 (x),76

only three plane waves |qi, |q + 2kL i, |q − 2kL i need to be considered:


− u4L

2

− u4L



q̄



 uL
2
h =  − 4 (q̄ − 2)

0


uL
2
−4
0
(q̄ + 2)

(5.21)

where q̄ = q/kL is the dimensionless quasi-momentum and we have dropped thecommon diagonal term uL /2 in (5.9).
In terms of the Hamiltonian (2.2), the presence of the lattice has two effects,
namely flattening the dispersion relation T (p) and increasing the interaction strengthλ(∆p) (in the lattice, p becomes the quasi-momentum q). In the shallow lattice limit
where the population concentrate at the bottom of the lowest band, the change indispersion relation can be captured by the effective mass M ∗ :
∗

M =~



2

∂2
T (q)
∂q 2

−1

(5.22)and the effective interaction strength λ(∆p) is approximately constant (in s-wave
scattering limit):
∗

λ =g

Z

V

dx |φ0(x)|4(5.23)

By diagonalizing the matrix (5.21) near q = 0, we can get closed form solution for
M and λ in a d-dimensional lattice:

M∗

−1
q
2
u
4 + 8L − 2



q

= M 1 − 8 qu2u2
4 + 8L
4 + 8L − 2



d
g
2α2 (4 + α2 )λ =1+V(1 + 2α2 )2u L 2
α =u
4 4 + 8L∗

(5.24)(5.25)

Eqs. (5.24) and (5.25) work fairly well for lattice depths up to ∼ 5 ER . Fig. 5-3 plots
the above approximate formulas in comparison with the exact band calculations for77

a three dimensional lattice (d = 3).
4

7

Approx.
Exact

5λ∗ / λM* / M

3

Approx.
Exact

2

3

1
1
0
0

2

4
6
8
Lattice Depth [ER]

10

0

2

4
6
8
Lattice Depth [ER]10

Figure 5-3: Effective mass and interaction: The approximate formulas are accurate
up to ∼ 5 ER . The band structure calculations were done numerically with 20 planewaves.

5.1.3

Deep lattice

In the deep lattice regime (& 5 ER ), the single particle part of Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian (5.18) has the tridiagonal form:hs′ |h|si = −J(δs,s′ +1 + δs,s′ −1 )(5.26)

where δi , j is the Kronecker delta. Therefore the eigenenergy Eq corresponding to the
Bloch function φq (x) has a closed form:
Eq = −2J cos(qaL )(5.27)

It immediately follows that the width of the lowest energy band (in each latticedirection) ∆E0 is directly proportional to the tunneling rate J:∆E0 = 4J78

(5.28)

and the effective mass M ∗ (at zero quasi-momentum) is inversely proportional to J:
M∗ =

~2 −1
J
2a2L

(5.29)It should be noted that these closed form solutions exist because we have ignored
the tunneling beyond the nearest neighbors. The agreement of (5.27) with the exact
shape of the lowest band provides a test for whether this approximation is justified.
Fig. 5-4 shows such a comparison.
2.15

Exact
2.05
Eq [ER]

Approx.

1.95

1.85
−1

−0.5

0

0.5

1

q [kL]

Figure 5-4: The lowest band in deep lattice regime: At 5 ER , J = 0.0658 ER andthe approximate formula (5.27) is close to the exact solution. A constant is added toaccount for the omitted energy offset ǫ0 = 1.95 ER in (5.15).

5.1.4

Mott-insulator transition

As discussed above, for lattice depths greater than 5 ER , the Bose-Hubbard model(5.18) is a good approximation and the system dynamics is determined by two parameters – tunneling rate J and on-site interaction U, which are both functions of
the lattice depth uL . The results of J and U from the band structure calculation areplotted in Fig. 5-5 for 23 Na in a three dimensional lattice using 1064 nm laser.
79

2

U

U and 35 J [ER]

1

35 J
6
5
4
3
2

0.1
6
5
4
3
2

5

10

15

20

25

30

Lattice Depth [ER]Figure 5-5: U and J as functions of lattice depth: J is rescaled by a factor of 35,
so that at the crossing point of J and U, the corresponding lattice depth gives thecritical value for Mott-insulator transition in a three dimensional optical lattice atunit filling n = 1 (see discussion in text). In the natural unit ER , J is independentof atomic mass and wavelength, whereas U is proportional to as /λL [Eq. 5.53]. HereU is calculated for 23 Na using as = 2.75 nm and λL = 1064 nm. The exponential
suppression of J causes the critical depth u∗L to depend weakly on the scattering lengthand occupancy number n. In this case, u∗L = 16.3, 18.5, 20.0, 21.2, 22.1, 22.9, 23.6 for
n = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 respectively.

80

Since both J and U are positive real numbers, it immediately follows from theBose-Hubbard model that in order to minimize the energy, the “tunneling terms” (∝J) tend to delocalize the atoms to create coherence between neighboring sites ha†s+1 as i,whereas the “interaction terms” (∝ U) tend to localize the atoms and decrease thecoherence 1 . A more detailed meanfield study predicts a quantum phase transition
from a superfluid state (delocalized) to a Mott-insulator state [135, 136, 137, 131], atthe transition point:
 
i
h
p
U
= 2d 2n + 1 + 2 n(n + 1)
J c

(5.30)

where 2d represents the number of nearest neighbors in a d-dimensional optical lattice,and n denotes the number of atoms per lattice site.
From Fig. 5-5, J decreases exponentially as the lattice depth uL increases :J ∼ e−0.3uL(5.31)

while U increases roughly linearly with uL for three dimensional lattice [see Eq. (5.54)
in Section 5.6]:
U ∼ 1.33 + 0.7uL(5.32)The Mott-insulator transition occurs for the lattice depth where the two curves cross,roughly 16.3 ER for 23 Na in a 1064 nm three dimensional lattice at unit filling (n = 1).
Note that while U depends linearly on the scattering length as , a factor of 2 increase in
as only reduces the critical depth by roughly 2 ER . This is because of the exponentiallyfast suppression of J. Therefore, unless one can change the scattering length by alarge factor (for example, near a Feshbach resonance), the quantum phase transition
occurs around the same lattice depth between 10 to 20 ER . For the same reason,
the linear dependence of the critical U/J in Eq. (5.30) on the occupancy number per
lattice site n only changes the critical lattice depth by a few ER .
It should be pointed out that a perfectly localized Mott-insulator state can only1

For a given total number of atoms, the minimal interaction energy is achieved for commensurate
fillings.

81

be achieved for commensurate filling of integer n if there is no other external potential
Uex present. This is illustrated in Fig. 5-6(a) where there is one extra atom after everysite is occupied by an atom. Since all the states | · · · , ns−1 = 1, ns = 2, ns+1 = 1, · · · i(s = 1, 2, · · · ) are degenerate and coupled by the tunneling matrix element J, theground state cannot be the perfectly localized situation. With a smooth trap however– “smooth” means the energy offset due to the trap between adjacent lattice sites issmall compared to U – the atoms can distribute into shells of Mott-insulator atdifferent filling factors as in Fig. 5-6(b) [138].

5.2

Experimental Setup

The basic configurations for both the dye laser lattice and the IR lattice were thesame on the BEC machine side. Fig. 5-7 illustrates the positions of the various beams
relative to the condensate. All laser beams were transported through optical fibers
from another laser table, and actively stabilized to computer generated reference
signals through feedback servos. The optics setup before the fibers and the servo
components are illustrated in Fig. 5-15 in Section 5.5.
In our experiments, the condensates were loaded from the magnetic trap into thenearly spherical crossed optical dipole trap in about a second. The atoms were held
in a tight optical trap for varied amount of time to control the final atom number
through three body collisions. The optical trap was then decompressed to the final
trap frequencies, which were chosen such that the intraband excitation was minimized
during the lattice ramping (see Section 5.5.5). A vertical magnetic field gradient wasapplied to compensate for gravity and eliminate sagging in the weak optical trap.
The condensate had negligible thermal fraction as the evaporation continued in the
optical trap for a few seconds.
The lattice ramping sequence of both the optical trap and the lattice beams wascontrolled by programming the functional form of the computer analog outputs thatwere used as the reference signals to servo the optical powers. The feedback servos
for the lattice beams allowed for a ramping time constant τramp ∼ 1 ms.
82

(a)

U

(b)

Figure 5-6: (Color) Incommensurate filling in a homogenous optical lattice: (a) The
extra atom is free to hop to any lattice site without changing the energy of the system.
(b) With a smooth trapping potential, atoms could distribute such that each latticesite is filled up to a constant chemical potential, resulting in a Thomas-Fermi profilein the case of a harmonic trap. Figures are for illustration purposes and not drawn
to scale.

83Lattice (T)ODT (H)BEC
Lattice (L)Lattice (R)ODT (V)
Figure 5-7: (Color) Optical dipole trap (ODT) and lattice beams setup: Three lattice
beams – Left (L), Right (R) and Top (T) are retro-reflected to form standing waves.
Two ODT beams – Horizontal (H) and Vertical (V) are crossed to form a round trap.

84

5.3

Yellow lattice and photoassociative resonances

Our first optical lattice using a red-detuned dye laser eventually proved barely goodenough to observe the superfluid-to-Mott insulator transition, with a lattice ramp
sequence of a few milliseconds [139]. During the ramp-up and ramp-down of thelattice, we observed the disappearance and re-emergence of the interference patternin time-of-flight, as shown in Fig. 5-8. The heating of the system out of the groundstate during the lattice ramping process could be characterized by the fraction of
atoms outside the condensate at the end of the ramp sequence, and turned out to be∼ 20 % for the parameters of our experiment.
(a)τramp = 1 ms

τramp = 5 ms

τramp = 10 ms

Lattice Depth

(b)
20 ER

0

τramp

2 τramp

Time

Figure 5-8: Interference patterns in time-of-flight from a three dimensional lattice:(a) The images from left to right are for lattice depths 0, 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 16, 12, 8,
4, 0 ER . The time of flight is 7 ms and the field of view is 1000 µm×1200 µm. The
peak occupancy here is around 5, which means the Mott-insulator transition should
occur between 14 and 20 ER . (b) The lattice depth is ramped linearly.

The spontaneous scattering (∼ 20 s−1 ) and the three-body collision loss (∼ 16 s−1 )placed severe limits on the duration of the experiment. The three-body loss could be85

reduced by lowering the total number of atoms, although at the time we were limited
by our imaging and atom counting resolutions – we failed to observe a reproducible
signal in our attempt to create Feshbach molecules at low atom numbers (so as tohave two atoms per lattice site). The time limit also precluded other more conclusive
diagnostic techniques such as the gap measurement [60, 140, 141] or radio-frequency
spectroscopy [142, 143].
In the process of optimizing our yellow (reddish orange to be exact) lattice, we
stumbled upon some lattice wavelengths near which large atom losses were observed.
One of such loss features is shown in Fig. 5-9. With some theoretical help from NIST
scientists Kevin Jones and Eite Tiesinga, we confirmed these losses were due to singlephoton photoassociations. A sequence of previously unobserved resonance peaks due

Number of Atoms [Arb. Unit]

to (1)1 Σ+
g state were identified. Detailed discussion can be found in [139].

0.25

1.00

1.75

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.00
2.75
∆ν [GHz]

3.00

3.50

3.0

3.5

1000

800

600

400

200
2.0

2.5

∆ν [GHz]

Figure 5-9: Atoms loss due to photoassociation resonance: The top row shows theremaining atom cloud after the lattice was ramped up in 1 ms to peak intensity
280 W/cm2 in each beam and then ramped down in 1 ms. The zero of the frequency
axis corresponds to lattice wavelength 594.490 nm as measured by a wavemeter accurate ∼ 1 GHz.

86

5.4

Enhanced quantum depletion

Shortly after Wolfgang was awarded the 2001 Nobel prize in physics for the discovery
of gaseous BEC, Laszlo Tisza gave a commemorating talk at the Center for Ultracold
Atoms entitled “The History of the Two-Fluid Concept and a New Look at the BoseEinstein Condensation”. It was a popular talk without much technical depth, bysomeone who was in the thick of things when the first understandings of superfluid
helium were developed. For me, there were two things from the talk that stood out.
First is the difficulty of understanding the role of Bose-Einstein condensation in the
superfluidity of a strongly interacting system such as liquid helium. This is one of
the main reasons why gaseous BEC has garnered such widespread interest across thecondensed matter physics community. Second is the distinction Tisza emphasized
between superfluid fraction and condensate fraction. Superfluid fraction is related tofinite temperature and typically approaches unity in a superfluid as the temperature
decreases to absolute zero. Condensate fraction is related to interaction and can be(significantly) less than unity even at zero temperature. In general condensate fraction
is not directly correlated with the superfluid fraction. One extreme (as mentioned in
Chapter 1) is the absence of superfluidity but unity condensate fraction for an ideal gasof bosons at zero temperature. In the case of superfluid helium, the opposite is true
– at low enough temperature, He II fraction approaches unity while the condensate
fraction is only about 10 % [54, 70].
Gaseous BECs of alkali atoms are superfluid which has been demonstrated theoretically [80] and experimentally [87, 88, 89, 144, 145, 146]. The thermal (non-superfluid)
fraction for the typical experiments can be made extremely small. Due to the weakinteraction, the quantum depleted (non-condensate) fraction is also small. Therefore,
people often use the terms “condensate” and “superfluid” interchangeably, which may
have prompted Tisza’s comment on their distinction. In principle, the quantum depletion for gaseous condensates can be increased by increasing the atomic density,
but three body recombination dramatically reduces the lifetime for density above
1015 cm−3 [147]. In our recent work, we showed that the intermediate regime between

87

quantum gases (low quantum depletion) and He II (high quantum depletion) could
be reached in a optical lattice.

5.4.1

Quantum depletion in a BEC

The quantum depleted fraction in a weakly interacting condensate can be calculated within the Bogoliubov theory developed in Chapter 2. In particular, from the
Bogoliubov transformation [inverse of Eqs. (2.52) and (2.53)] and the ground state
wavefunction [Eq. (2.55)], the population in momentum state |pi turns out to be:
p
T
(p)
+
µ
−
T 2 (p) + 2µT (p)p
vp2 =2 T 2 (p) + 2µT (p)(5.33)

Note that vp2 increases as the meanfield energy µ increases, or as the kinetic energy
T (p) decreases – in the limit of T (p) → 0+ , vp2 diverges as:
vp2 ∼ p1
T (p)(5.34)and in the limit of T (p) → ∞, vp2 approaches zero:
vp2 ∼

1

(5.35)T 2 (p)

The total quantum depleted fraction is given by:VNqd =(2π~)35.4.2

Z

dp vp2(5.36)V

BEC in free space

In free space, the kinetic energy and meanfield energy are given by:p2
2M
4π~2 asρµ =M= Mc2sT (p) =

88

(5.37)(5.38)

Eq. (5.36) becomes:

Nqd

V
=
(2π)3



Mcs
~

3 Z ∞

2
1 + p̂2 −2

dp̂ (4π p̂ )08πV(4πas ρ)3/2
3
(2π)
3
p
= 1.505 ρa3s N

=

2

q

q

4

p̂2 + p̂44

p̂2 + p̂4(5.39)(5.40)

where p̂ = p/(Mcs ) is the momentum measured in the natural unit ps = Mcs , ρ =N/V is the atomic density.
Fig. 5-10 plots the integrand in (5.39) – quantum depletion density function vs.
dimensionless momentum p̂. Due to the diminishing density of states near zero momentum, the quantum depletion density is actually peaked around ps which makespphysical sense. The total quantum depleted fraction is 1.505 ρa3s , where:Θ = ρa3s(5.41)

is the diluteness factor that characterizes the density and interaction strength ofthe condensate. For gaseous condensates, Θ is normally quite small which leads tonegligible quantum depletion.

23

Na BEC at the typical density of 1014 cm−3 , forinstance, has a quantum depletion of merely 0.2 %.

5.4.3

BEC in an optical lattice

As discussed in Sections 5.1.2 and 5.1.3, the presence of an optical lattice effectively
flattens the dispersion curve (kinetic energy) and increases the meanfield interaction.
Therefore one expects to see enhanced quantum depletion.
For a shallow lattice, the change in the dispersion relation is captured by anincreased effective mass M ∗ as in Eq. (5.22), while the increase in the meanfield isgiven by λ∗ as in Eq. (5.23). The quantum depletion can be obtained from the free89Quantum Depletion [Arb. Unit]

2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5

1

2

3
p [Mcs]4

5

Figure 5-10: Quantum depletion density of a BEC in free space: The quantum depletion peaks around ps = Mcs and mostly distributes at momenta & ps (greater than80 %).

space case (5.40) with the scattering length replaced by an effective one:a∗s =

 ∗ ∗
λ M
asg/V(5.42)

Fig. 5-11 shows the results for two different per lattice site occupancy numbers n = 1
and n = 7 for 23 Na |F = 1, mF = −1i condensate (as = 2.75 nm) in a three
dimensional optical lattice of 1064 nm.
For a deep lattice, the quantum depletion starts to populate the entire first Brillouin zone, while the large gap between the lowest and the next excited bands prevents
any significant population beyond the lowest band. In this case, the free space formula with an effective scattering length overestimates the quantum depletion as theavailable states for the free space result are not limited to the first Brillouin zone.
In addition, the dispersion relation for a deep lattice (uL & 5) is sinusoidal as in
Eq. (5.27). Therefore a single effective mass (at zero quasi-momentum) is insufficient
to capture the shape of the entire first band. For lattice depths between 5 and 20 ER ,

90

n=1

n=7
0.20

Quantum Depletion

0.20
(a)
0.15

(a)
0.15

(b)
(c)

0.10

(c)

0.10
0.05

0.05
0.00

(b)

0

2

4

6

8

10

Lattice Depth [ER]

0.00

0

2

4

6

8

10

Lattice Depth [ER]Figure 5-11: Quantum depletion for a BEC in a three dimensional optical lattice:
Curves (a) and (b) are from the free space formula (5.40) using the effective scattering
length defined in (5.42), where M ∗ and λ∗ are obtained from (a) exact band structure
calculation (b) perturbation calculation Eqs. (5.24) and (5.25). Curve (c) is the deep
lattice calculation with only the first Brillouin zone populated by quantum depletion.
In the regime where the first Brillouin zone is not saturated (uL . 5), the perturbation
result (b) is very close to the band structure calculation (a). All calculations are donefor 23 Na BEC in |F = 1, mF = −1i state and lattice wavelength 1064 nm.

91

we can numerically integrate Eq. (5.36) using:T (q) = 4J

3
X
i=1

µ = nU

2

sin



qi λL
4



(5.43)(5.44)and the result is also shown in Fig. 5-11 which connects smoothly with the shallow
lattice results around 5 ER .

5.4.4

Quantum depletion in time-of-flight

For this experiment, we worked with an infra-red optical lattice at 1064 nm, where
the heating due to the spontaneous light scattering was no longer an issue. Due toour limited atom counting resolution, the peak occupancy number was set to aroundn = 7, which corresponds to three body decay rate . 6 s−1 . The lattice ramp time
was set to τramp = 50 ms. Fig. 5-12 shows the time-of-flight images after the latticeand optical trap are switched off (in < 1 µs) at various lattice depths.
We measured the quantum depletion directly from the absorption images taken intime-of-flight. This is incidentally another effect due to the optical lattice. For barecondensates in a harmonic trap, the quantum depletion (mostly in momentum statesp & ps , see Fig. 5-10) is adiabatically reabsorbed into the condensate as the density
decreases on the timescale of the trap period which is much longer than the inverse of
the meanfield energy (times ~) in the typical Thomas-Fermi regime. In contrast, theoptical lattice on-site trap frequency (for uL & 5) is much greater than the meanfieldenergy (“anti” Thomas-Fermi limit) and the time-of-flight image becomes a snapshotof the momentum distribution of the system at the switch-off of the lattice and trap
potential.
To measure the quantum depletion, we used a “masked two dimensional gaussianfit” to extract the number of atoms outside the interference peaks in the time-of-flightimages, an example of which is shown in Fig. 5-13. The measurement was done forone, two and three dimensional lattices, and the results are shown in Fig. 5-14. In a92

Lattice Depth

22 ER

2τrampτramp

1-d Top

2-d Top

3-d Side

0

0 ER

11 ER

22 ER

11 ER

0 ER

Figure 5-12: Time-of-flight images of atoms released from one, two and three dimensional lattices: The lattice depths for the sequence of images are, from left to right:
0, 11, 22, 11, 0 ER . The time-of-flight is 10 ms; the field of view is 1075 µm×861 µm
for the 3-d lattice imaged from the side, and 1185 µm×1079 µm for the 1-d and 2-dlattices imaged from the top. τramp here is 50 ms.

93three dimensional lattice, quantum depletion in excess of 50 % was observed. In one
and two dimensional lattices, the dispersion relation is only flattened in the latticebeam directions:
T (q) = 4J

d
X
i=1

sin

2



qi λL
4



2
3 
4ER X qi λL+ 2
π
4(5.45)

i=dwhere dimensions 1 through d are assumed to have a lattice beam present. For thelattice depths in our experiment, the quantum depletion remains small for one andtwo dimensional lattices, consistent with our measurement.

Figure 5-13: Masked gaussian fit to extract quantum depletion from time-of-flightimages: In this example, the interference peaks (i.e. the zero quasi-momentum fraction) in the left image are masked off by small rectangles as in the right image, andthen a two dimensional gaussian fit is used to extract the number of atoms outside
the interference peaks which is taken as the quantum depletion (with a small heatingcorrection [67]).

For three dimensional lattice, the superfluid to Mott-insulator transition is expected to occur at lattice depths between 16 to 24 ER for occupancy numbers n = 1
to 7. The Mott-insulator fraction is also shown in Fig. 5-14 which shows a muchsteeper transition than the gradual increase of quantum depletion (see detailed discussion in [67]). For one and two dimensional lattices, we do not expect to observe a
Mott-insulator transition at these lattice depths.

94

1. 0

3D
2D
1D

Quantum Depletion

0. 8

(i )
(ii)
(iii)

3D
2D
1D

0. 6

0. 4

0. 2

0. 0
5

10

15

20

Lattice Depth [ER]Figure 5-14: Quantum depletion of a BEC in a one, two and three dimensional opticallattice: the data points with statistical error bars are measured from the time-offlight images. The three thick curves are the theoretical calculation using Bogoliubov
theory and local density approximation assuming a Thomas-Fermi density profile forthe condensate with peak occupancy number n = 7. For comparison, also shownare (thin curves): (i) the Mott-insulator fraction and (ii) quantum depletion for ahomogeneous system of occupancy number n = 1 and (iii) n = 7. See detailed
discussion in [67]

95

5.5

Lattice setup procedure

This section serves as a “working manual” for the setup and calibration of the opticallattice in our lab. The focus is on the IR lattice which shares the same basic configuration with the earlier dye laser lattice, but presents some additional difficulties dueto the invisibility as well as the high power involved. While the “tricks” discussed
are particular to our machine configuration, they may provide some useful hints forother situations.

5.5.1

Laser system and optics layout

The procedure for setting up an optical lattice is now fairly standard. Most of theexisting setups use the same “tricks” discussed below. The main difficulty arises fromthe limited choices of lasers with appropriate wavelength and adequate power to form
an optical lattice deep enough to achieve quantum phase transition. There are threefactors to consider when choosing the lattice laser:
1. the laser must be sufficiently detuned from the atomic transition to limit theheating from spontaneous light scattering;
2. the laser must have enough power (at the given detuning) to reach the necessary
lattice depth – this usually means exceeding the critical depth for the quantum
phase transition;
3. the laser linewidth must be sufficiently narrow to achieve a stable interference
pattern.
From the discussion in Section 5.1.4, Compared to heavier atoms like 87 Rb, the higher
recoil energy for 23 Na requires higher absolute lattice depth to reach the criticalpoint of the quantum phase transition. In addition, the optical AC stark shift is
proportional to (ωa2 − ωL2 )−1 – ωL is the laser frequency and ωa the atomic transition
frequency (rad/s). Commonly available IR options include 850 nm laser diode and1064 nm Nd:YAG crystal laser. The atomic transition wavelength is 780 nm for 87 Rb

96

compared with 589 nm for 23 Na. Therefore 87 Rb requires about 10 times less power
than 23 Na to achieve the critical lattice depth (about 14 ER for 87 Rb) with a 1064 nm
lattice laser. Laser diodes (tens of milliwatts) are sufficiently powerful for latticeexperiments with 87 Rb 2 but not for 23 Na without some kind of power amplifier.
The lack of single-frequency high power IR laser was the major reason for our
initial attempt at using a dye laser several nanometers detuned to set up the opticallattice. Eventually, IPG Photonics was able to produce a high power IR laser
based on a single frequency seed and a fiber amplifier (Model: YAR-20K-1064SF), which outputs 20 W maximum CW power with a linewidth of ∼ 100 kHz. In
addition, IPG also provided us with a small amount of high-power single-mode opticalfibers designed to work with such high powers. This IR laser system enabled us toobtain enough light from a single source for the three lattice beams and a crossed
optical dipole trap (see below). Fig. 5-15 shows the optics table layout.
The high power optical fiber from IPG is a specially designed fiber that has a light
conducting cladding. Normal single-mode fiber can only conduct light through thecore and any light that leaks into the cladding escapes the fiber after a short distance.
The IPG fiber cladding has a high index of refraction and acts as a multi-mode fiber
for light leaked out of the fiber. This prevents local dissipation of very high laser
power that leads to excessive heating. However, due to this property, we could not
use the usual fiber alignment procedure of maximizing the output power (monitoredwith a photo diode) – one almost always gets > 95 % light through but most likely
the light is being conducted through the cladding and the output shows the speckle
pattern typical of a multi-mode fiber. The trick is to use some high index of refraction
material to coat a section of the output end so as to “lead” the multi-mode light outof the fiber before it hits the end of the fiber and shows up on the photo diode.
To get more than 80 % of single-mode light through proved to be much moredifficult, as expected. We followed a systematic procedure as the following:
1. The fiber has a specified 1/e2 beam waist 5.3 µm for perfect mode-matching2

Although diode lasers were used for some earlier experiments, Ti:Sapphire lasers are more commonly used to achieve deeper lattices.

97

(For future use)
- 30 MHzODT Beam 2+ 30 MHzODT Beam 1+ 60 MHz
Lattice Beam 3- 80 MHz
Lattice Beam 2+ 80 MHz

Fiber

PBC
WP

Lattice Beam 1
AOM

L1

L2

L3
PhotodiodeOptical DiodeFeedback servo to
AOM RF PowerIR Laser output

Figure 5-15: Optics table layout: The IR laser output is split into five beams withpolarizing beam cubes (PBC) and half waveplates (WP). Three are for the opticallattice, and two for a crossed optical dipole trap. The acousto-optical modulators(AOM) shift the frequencies of the beams at least 20 MHz apart to eliminate crossinterference between different beams. An optical diode (Model: OFR 50-3-1064VHP) is used to prevent the back-reflected lattice light from damaging the IR laser.
At the output of the fiber, a PBC is used to clean up the polarization after whicha pick-off window sends a few percent of light to a photo diode to monitor the laser
power. The photodiode signal is used for stabilizing the laser power to a reference level(typically generated by a computer analog output) through a proportional-integral(PI) feed back servo.

98

(independently checked with a beam profiler (Model: BeamOn-VIS (USB2)
CCD from Duma Photonics). We can calculate the size of the collimatedlight entering the fiber coupler (F230FC-C from Thorlabs focal length 4.5 mm)
needs to be 288 µm.
2. Using a two-lens telescope (L1 and L2 in Fig. 5-15), resize the beam into aslightly diverging size of somewhat smaller than 288 µm. It is important thatthe beam is approximately collimated but not exactly so that we can find theneeded size 288 µm over a couple of centimeters.
3. Place the fiber output coupler near the spot where the beam size is correct, andadd lens L3 as close to the output coupler as possible. L3 should be a long focal
length convex lens to flatten the wave front of the beam at the desired size.
This part requires swapping several lengths to find the best one. Despite thediscrete selections of focal length, we were able to mode match quite well andobtain nearly 90 % of single mode light through the fiber.
In addition, the fiber tips are angle-cleaved instead of polished. The surface of acleaved fiber tip looks mirror-like under the microscope, and is necessary for achieving
high coupling efficiency. We used a popular version of cleaver York FK12. Cleaved
fiber tips must be handled with great care, and we found it most convenient to workwith the universal fiber connector BFTU in conjunction with the 30126D1 FC
connector, both from Thorlabs, to terminate the cleaved fiber ends.

5.5.2

Lattice beam focusing and alignment

After the fiber (and the PBC in Fig. 5-15), the lattice beams are again resized andfocused at the condensate by a telescope L1 and L2 as in Fig. 5-16. We chose short
focal length for L1,2 (≈ s1 ) compared with the distance between L2 and the BEC (s2 ),such that a small displacement of L2 (compared to s1 ) could move s2 over a wide
range. This way, the beam size after L2 is somewhat decoupled from adjusting its
focus onto the condensate. We chose the beam size at L2 based on the target lattice99

beam waist wL ≈ 100 µm (see discussion below) at the BEC and the measured
distance s2 . Gaussian optics formulas should be used to account for the Rayleighrange (∼ 3 cm). The third lens (L3 ) is placed at about a focal length away fromthe BEC (again accounting for the finite Rayleigh range). The retro-reflection mirror(M) is immediately after L3 which re-collimates the beam.
s1

s2

s3
BEC

L1

L2

L3

M

Figure 5-16: (Color) Collimation of lattice beam: Telescope lenses L1 and L2 haveshort focal length (∼ 25 to 60 mm) and collimate the beam to the desired size (seetext). Due to the short focal length, a small displacement of L2 further away from L1changes focus of the lattice beam over a wide range, covering the location of BEC.

Note that the the measurement of distances si (∼ 20 to 30 cm) usually has a coupleof centimeters uncertainty, which is comparable to the Rayleigh range for the desiredlattice beam size. Besides, the optics cannot be placed at arbitrary spots due to spaceconstraint. It is therefore not practical to simply rely on the distance measurement
and calculation. In practice, one of L1 and L2 is mounted on a translation stage
with micrometer to scan the focus of the lattice beam, and achieve the best spatial
mode overlap between the incident and reflected beams. We then measure the beam
waists at an equal distance away from the BEC, which is easy as the BEC machine
has symmetric configurations. From the two measured beam waists and the distance
between the two points, we calculate the beam waist at the BEC 3 . Typically wewould try a few combinations of L1 and L2 before settling on a pair giving the closest
to target beam waist at the condensate.
The spatial mode match between the incident and retro-reflected beam is achieved
3

We can also learn from this measurement whether the beam focus is actually on the BEC, which
is not so important as the Rayleigh range is much greater than the size of the condensate.

100

by adjusting the position of lens L2 and maximizing the light going back through thefiber picked off by a 50/50 beam splitter. For each L2 location, the retro mirror
M is tweaked to keep the pointing of the retro beam optimized. During this mode
matching process, the laser power is actively stabilized at a constant level.
Finally, we align the lattice beam with the condensate. The alignment was mademore difficult by the fact that none of our lattice beams were aligned along the imaging
axes due to limited optical access. We could not use the camera to coarse-align thelattice beam onto the condensate. Given the small size of the beam (∼ 100 µm atBEC), it is actually non-trivial to get the beam close enough to the condensate sothat the optical potential starts to affect the atoms, which is the signal for the finealignment of the beams. We developed the following procedure to first align theincident beam to the condensate (one at a time without the retro beam), after which
the above mode matching technique can be used to overlap the retro-reflection with
the incident beam:
1. Some small amount of dye laser light tuned to sodium atomic resonance wassent through the lattice fiber. The fiber was multi-mode for yellow light andthe IR optics worked poorly, but we only cared about the direction of the light.
With atomic beam shutter open and the camera running in “focusing” mode,we were able to “see” the beam as the fluorescence from the atomic beam, andadjust it onto the in-trap BEC location on the camera. We then placed twoirises to mark the beam path on either side of BEC.
2. After the initial step, the lattice beam should be within a couple of millimetersfrom the BEC. BEC released from the trap was able to hit the lattice beam in& 50 ms ballistic expansion and be trapped or deflected by the lattice beam(increase laser power to enhance the effect if necessary). Note: A magnetic
field gradient was applied during the time of flight to cancel out the gravity, sothat atoms could expand in all directions for a long time without falling out ofthe picture (as lattice beam could be anywhere including above the in-trap BEC
location). Eventually, the lattice beam could be tuned to trap all the atoms
101into a tightly squeezed “tube” (. 20 µm radially).
3. The beam was further fine tuned with the micrometer mount (SN100-F2M
from Newport) such that the location of the atom “tube” was within 10 µm
from the initial BEC in-trap location on the camera. This step provided very
high sensitivity – a quarter of the smallest graduation on the micrometer knob.
4. The two irises were adjusted to mark the updated beam path. Afterwards, aslong as the atom trap does not move too much, we can skip the first two steps,
simply align the beam to the irises and use step 3 for fine adjustment.

5.5.3

Lattice beam calibration

To calibrate the depth of the lattice beam with respect to the lattice power, wehave tried three different methods that complement each other and provide someconsistency check:• Optical dipole trap frequency measurement,• Kapitza-Dirac diffraction,• Intensity modulation spectroscopy (Bragg).
The first method is the easiest to implement but also the most inaccurate. The
idea is that the laser power PL can be measured with a photodiode. If in addition
we have the optical dipole trap frequency ωodt due to the lattice beam (with retroreflection blocked), then the beam waist wL can be calculated. However, to get thelattice depth, we have to figure out the contrast of the standing wave which is difficult
to know accurately – the retro-reflected beam is attenuated by uncoated/dirty optics(such as our glass cell) and the mode-match could be imperfect. We simply assume aperfect contrast so that the standing wave AC stark shift is 4 times higher than theincident wave alone, which usually sets an upper bound for the true lattice depth 4 .
4There is a chance that the retro-reflected beam has a tighter focus at the condensate, but usually
the mode-matching is quite good and the power loss reduces the contrast more.

102

For trap frequency measurement, with the atoms trapped in the lattice beams (one ata time), we “kick” the atoms radially with a magnetic field gradient pulse to induce
dipole oscillation and record the location after a fixed time of flight – again gravity
is cancelled out during the entire process (except when applying the vertical kick) toprevent it from dragging atoms out of the lattice beams (especially for the verticalbeam).

+2 kL
+1 kL

0 kL

-1 kL

-2 kL
4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

τ [µs]
Figure 5-17: Kapitza-Dirac diffraction in a pulsed optical lattice: The population incentral peak shows an oscillation in time, whose frequency corresponds to the gap
between the lowest and the second excited bands (see discussion in text). For thissequence, the oscillation period ∼ 12 µs which corresponds to uL = 15.6. The timeof flight is 10 ms and the field of view is 1237 µm×220 µm.

The second method – “Kapitza-Dirac diffraction” [140] – is also very convenient,and much more reliable. Simply by pulsing on the lattice beam (using an AOM
as switch) at a fixed (unknown) depth uL for various length of time (∼ µs), one
would observe a time-varying diffraction pattern as in Fig. 5-17. The size of thecentral peak shows an oscillation, which is easily understood as following: During thelattice pulse, the eigenstates of the system are the Bloch functions. The system is103initially in the zero momentum state |0i which can be decomposed into populationsin the Bloch states of n = 0, 2, 4, · · · bands at zero quasi-momentum5 . These bands

subsequently evolve at their own eigen frequencies, so the population in |0i should
contain oscillating terms at various gap frequencies. Fig. 5-18 shows the populations
as a function of the lattice depth, which mostly concentrate in the n = 0 and n = 2
band for uL < 20. Therefore the population in the |0i state oscillates predominantly
at the gap frequency E0,2 − E0,0 . Fig. 5-19 shows E0,2 − E0,0 as related to uL and one
can infer the lattice depth from the observed Kapitza-Dirac frequency.
1E0,2 - E0,0 [ER]

0.8
0.6
0.4

n=0
n=2
n=4

0.2
0
0

5

10
15
Lattice Depth [ER]20

Figure 5-18: Band populations of zero momentum state |0i: For lattice depths up
to 20 ER , the populations concentrate largely in the lowest (n = 0) and the second
excited bands (n = 2). Therefore the oscillation frequency corresponds to the energy
gap between the two bands.

Due to the microsecond pulses involved, this method does require a relatively stable laser power from shot to shot without active stabilization (since the stabilization
servo has a much longer time constant). However, with the fiber laser system and acycle time of around 30 seconds, such stability is not hard to achieve. In addition,
one should avoid calibrating at very shallow lattices (< 5 ER ) as the sensitivity tolattice depth becomes lower and longer pulses are required to observe the oscillation
5

Symmetry dictates zero population in the n = 1, 3, · · · bands.

104

14

E0,2 - E0,0 [ER]

12
10
8
6
4
2
0
0

5

10

15

20

Lattice Depth [ER]Figure 5-19: Energy gap between the lowest and the second excited bands at zeroquasi-momentum: For lattice depths between 10 to 20 ER , the energy gap is almost
a linearly function of lattice depth with a slope ∼ 0.55.
which is susceptible to noise and decoherence effects (due to, for example, the inhomogeneity of the system). On the other hand, at very deep lattice (> 20 ER ),the population becomes significant for more than two bands and the signal contains
multiple harmonics and cannot be fit to a single oscillation. A range of 10 to 20 ER
could be easily pre-selected with the “trap frequency measurement” method.
The third method is essentially “Bragg spectroscopy” for BEC in the opticallattice [60, 140]. It was somewhat complicated to set up and in our case, did notwork noticeably better than the second technique. It was seldom used as consistency
check or when laser power was not stable enough (as was often the case with the dyelaser lattice system). Instead of pulsing on the lattice, we adiabatically loaded the
BEC into the zero-quasi-momentum state at some actively stabilized lattice depth,
which is then dithered at various frequencies to excite the atom into the second excited
band6 . We typically dithered at about 5 to 10% total lattice depth7 for about 1 ms,
6

The dithering does not couple to the first excited band for symmetry reasons.
This corresponds to about a couple of ER modulation depth for uL ∼ 10. The Rabi frequencyof such a dither is about 20 to 30% of the modulation depth for uL . 20.
7105

after which the lattice was adiabatically ramped down instead of being abruptly shutoff. The population in the excited band appeared as ±2~kL momentum peaks intime-of-flight when the dithering frequency is near the band gap E0,2 − E0,0 . Notethat the ramp-down of the lattice must not be too slow or the trap potential would
distort the momentum distribution and make it difficult to see the signal. We found
1 ms ramp time to be sufficiently slow to allow the lower band Bloch state to convert
adiabatically back to the zero momentum state.

5.5.4

Crossed optical dipole trap

The alignment of the crossed optical dipole trap (ODT) is much easier as both beams
are along the imaging axis. We used the camera in “focusing” mode to coarse alignthe light onto the condensate. For fine alignment, we used the phase contrast imaging[148] (8× magnification) to look at the condensate trapped with the magnetic trap
and one ODT beam on at a time. The ODT provided much tighter confinement and“sucked” the atoms into a small circle whose location was matched to the condensate
location in the magnetic trap only. The phase contrast imaging does not “see” thethermal component (which is quite optically dense in the trap) and improves thealignment resolution.

5.5.5

A few subtleties

Lattice beam size : As the lattice depth is proportional to light intensity, a tighter
focus wL would reduce the required laser power. However, the gaussian profile ofthe lattice beam adds an extra confining potential which tends to localize the atoms
toward the center. At the same lattice depth uL , the peak density is proportional
−6/5

to wL

N −2/5 [see Eqs. (5.63) and (5.64) below]. Since many experiments require

relatively low occupancy numbers per lattice site (one or two), we can not reduce
wL too much without having to work with very small number of atoms N (see thenumbers in Table 5.3), which requires very good imaging to have decent signal tonoise ratio.

106Adiabatic BEC loading : Because of the large energy gap between the lowest andthe next excited bands, it is relatively easy to maintain “inter-band” adiabaticity
during the lattice ramp – any ramp time & 1 ms is slow enough. However, the“intra-band” adiabaticity is not as easy to maintain, especially as the lattice deepens,
the band width actually decreases exponentially. A mismatch between the meanfieldenergy and the trapping potential (both of which increase with the lattice depth
as well) would cause a phase to develop across the condensate or, put plainly, thecondensate would tend to “slosh” [138]. This leads to intra-band heating. However,
due to the almost linear dependence of Û on the lattice depth [Eq. (5.54)] in a three
dimensional lattice, so long as the initial and final equilibrium condensate sizes areequal, the meanfield and the trapping potential would remain closely matched during
the entire ramp process. The final trapping potential is mostly due to the lattice
beams and is fairly isotropic. Due to the limited axial trap frequency for our magnetic
trap (. 40 Hz), we could not make the magnetic trap spherical over a wide rangeof trap frequencies. This is one of the reasons for us to setup a crossed dipole trap
whose trap frequencies are chosen to match the initial and final condensate sizes.
Lattice beam polarization : Because of the fine structure separation ∆hf (about
500 GHz between 23 Na D1 and D2 lines), if the lattice laser detuning from the atomic
transition is comparable to ∆hf , one cannot consider D1 and D2 lines to be degenerate.
In that case, the optical potential not only depends on the laser intensity but also on
the polarization. Such an effect was actually used to create a moving optical lattice[149] For example, for atoms in the |F = 1, mF = −1i state, the optical potential due
to D1 and D2 lines are:1
5
|E− |2 + |E+ |2
6
18
1
1
2
|E− | + |E+ |2
D2 ∝
6
18

D1 ∝

(5.46)(5.47)

where E± are the electric field with σ ± helicity. However, if the polarization is not
purely transverse to the quantization axis of the atoms, there could be non-vanishingcoupling to the other hyperfine states (|F = 2, mF = 0, −2i). This coupling goes to107

zero when D1 and D2 lines are degenerate (compared to the laser detuning), or when
the polarization of the light is purely linear. We have used linear polarization for all
lattice beams (as well as the crossed dipole trap beams) so far in our experiments –the dye laser lattice system, in particular, operated at a detuning not much greater(about 10 times) than the D1 and D2 separation.

5.6

Cheatsheet

This section is intended as a quick reference for calculating various quantities relevant
to optical lattice experiments. I first list some useful formulas, and then tabulate somenumbers and scaling relations. The numbers are calculated for the atomic species(23 Na, 87 Rb and 6 Li) and lattice wavelength (1064 nm) found in the MIT labs. Using
the scaling relations, one can easily obtain relevant quantities for other atomic species
or lattice wavelengths.
Previously undefined symbols used below:
IL : laser peak intensity
PL : laser powerwL : laser 1/e2 gaussian beam waist
Qe : electron charge
Me : electron massc : speed of light
ε0 : vacuum permittivity in SI units (8.85 × 10−12 F/m)
Γa : natural linewidth of the atom (rad/s)
λa : atomic transition wavelengthnavg : coarse-grained atomic density

108

npeak : peak atomic density at the lattice potential minima
K3 : three-body decay coefficientΓ3 : peak three-body decay rate K3 n2peakωtr : harmonic trap frequency

5.6.1

Useful formulas• Recoil Energy ER :
ER =

h2
2Mλ2L

(5.48)• Optical AC stark shift (SI units are used):∆UACΓa 3πc2= IL 2ω − ωL2 ωa2
 a

Q2e
= IL
2Me ε0 c(ωa2 − ωL2 )

(5.49)
for alkali atoms(5.50)

Multiply by a factor of 4 for a standing wave with perfect contrast.
• Spontaneous Rayleigh scattering rate (SI units are used):Γsc = IL

"

Γ2a
6πc2
(ωa2 − ωL2 )2 ~ωa



ωL
ωa

3 #

(5.51)

Multiply by a factor of 4 for a standing wave with perfect contrast.
• Gaussian beam profile (r distance from center):2−2 r 2IL (r) = IL (0)ew
L22PL −2 wr 2
e L
=
πwL2

(5.52)• On-site interaction U in Eq. (5.17) as a function of (dimensionless) lattice depth

109

uL :


16as
πλL



Û (uL )U(uL ) = ERZ
3Û (uL ) = aL
dx |wn (x)|4(5.53)

V≃ 1.33 + 0.7uL

for three dimensional lattice.

(5.54)Û (uL) is a dimensionless number depending only on uL and reflects the enhancement of interaction due to the lattice.
• Local harmonic frequency at the bottom of each lattice site:√ωlh = 2 uL

• Local harmonic oscillator length alh =
alh =

q



ER
~



(5.55)

~
:
M ωlh

λL

(5.56)

1/4

2πuL• Optical dipole trap (ODT) frequency due to the gaussian profile of the latticebeam:ωodt = ωlh



λ
√ L
2πwL



(5.57)

This is due to one lattice beam. Trap frequencies should be added in quadrature.

5.6.2

Some numbers• Table 5.1 lists some useful atomic constants.
• Table 5.2 lists U and J for three-dimensional cubic lattice 5 to 30 ER deep.
• Table 5.3 lists various quantities for N = 105 atoms in a 20 ER three dimensionallattice, and the lattice beams have 1/e2 waist equal to 100 µm.

110

23

as [nm]M [amu]Γa [2π MHz]λa [nm]ER /h [Hz]K3 [10−30 cm6 s−1 ]

87
6
Na
Rb
Li
2.75
5.45
–
22.9898 86.9092 6.0151
10.01
5.98
5.92
589
780
671
7666
2028
29299
1.1
5.8
–

Table 5.1: Various constants for 23 Na, 87 Rb and 6 Li: 1 amu= 1.66053886 × 10−27 kg,
and the lattice wavelength is 1064 nm. Scattering lengths are given for 23 Na pair both
in |F = 1, mF = −1i hyperfine state, 87 Rb pair both in |F = 1, mF = −1i or one in|F = 1, mF = −1i and one in |F = 2, mF = 2i [114]. 6 Li scattering length between|F = 1/2, mF = ±1/2i is highly variable as the experiments typically take place near
the broad Feshbach resonance [150]. The natural linewidths are taken from [151].

5.6.3

Scaling relations
ER ∝U ∝∆UAC ∝Γa ∝Γsc ∝ωodt ∝
navg ∝
RTF ∝

1
Mλ2L
as
λL
IL
2
ωa − ωL2
ωa2 approximately for alkali atoms
IL ωL3(ωa2 − ωL2 )2√uL
MλL wL
6/5

N 2/5
Mωtr
3/5
~
as Û 3/5
(Nas )1/5(Mωtr )2/5

(5.58)(5.59)(5.60)(5.61)(5.62)(5.63)(5.64)(5.65)

111

uL
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30

Û
4.2173536
5.099319748
5.96420995
6.808026905
7.630290247
8.432083331
9.215050505
9.980926877
10.73134008
11.46774231
12.19140073
12.90341171
13.60472252
14.29615382
14.97841986
15.65214588
16.31788253
16.97611773
17.62728641
18.2717784
18.90994499
19.54210425
20.16854549
20.78953294
21.40530887
22.01609618

J/ER
U/ER (23 Na) U/ER (87 Rb)]
0.065767347 0.05551383
0.107192159
0.050773027 0.067123319
0.129609026
0.039417172 0.078508033
0.151591875
0.030799256 0.089615357
0.173039108
0.024226709 0.100438966
0.193938513
0.019182452 0.110993122
0.214317627
0.015284695 0.121299468
0.234218245
0.012252082 0.131380845
0.253684467
0.009876701 0.141258677
0.272757663
0.008004102 0.15095208
0.291474743
0.006518816 0.160477734
0.309867915
0.005333916 0.16985007
0.327965044
0.004383499 0.179081558
0.345790209
0.003617253
0.188183
0.363364266
0.002996508 0.197163798
0.38070537
0.00249135 0.206032182
0.397829414
0.002078495 0.214795401
0.414750392
0.001739714 0.223459876
0.431480707
0.001460653 0.232031334
0.448031412
0.001229954 0.240514905
0.464412417
0.001038582 0.248915214
0.480632649
0.000879316 0.257236447
0.496700193
0.000746359 0.265482412
0.512622403
0.000635039 0.273656588
0.528405994
0.000541571 0.281762164
0.544057125
0.000462884 0.289802074
0.55958146

Table 5.2: U and J for 5 to 30 ER three dimensional lattice: Û and J are calculated
numerically with 20 plane waves and 10 lattice sites (convergence checked for bothparameters). Û is defined in Eq. (5.53). U for 6 Li is not listed because in typicalexperiments, the scattering length could be tuned over a wide range with Feshbachresonance.

112

23

Na
Rb
6
Li

87

PL
[mW]

ωodt
[2π s−1 ]

543
52.2
1810

232
61.4
888

3
navg λ2L(number ofatoms per site)
5.5
3.6
–

[10

npeak
14
−3

RTF
cm ] [µm]

19.2
12.7
–

11.8
13.5
–

Γsc
[s−1 ]
0.009
0.007
0.041

Table 5.3: Various quantities of interest for atoms in a three dimensionallattice:√
The ODT frequency is obtained from Eq. (5.57) multiplied by 2 to account forthe crossed lattice beams. The scattering rate Γsc is for a single standing wave withperfect contrast. The numbers are calculated for N = 105 atoms in a 20 ER three
dimensional lattice at 1064 nm with 1/e2 waist equal to 100 µm. 6 Li scattering length
is variable near the Feshbach resonance, which gives varied cloud size and density.
One can use the scaling relations in this section to obtain the corresponding quantities
for other values of N, wL and uL and different atomic species.

113

Chapter 6
Conclusion
6.1

ReminiscenceThis is literally the last chapter of my PhD career. I cannot help but feel a bit
nostalgic about my five plus years at MIT, which for better or worse have led me
into a rather different career path than I had in mind growing up. I suppose a little
reminiscence is in order.
Back in 2000 at the MIT open house, I became pretty excited about the prospectof getting into a new field which seemed to be growing at an explosive pace. At thetime, the gaseous BEC was barely five years old and only a handful of labs aroundthe world had a working BEC machine. The development in the ensuing years far
exceeded my (admittedly uninformed) expectations. A Nobel prize was awarded forthe achievement of BEC in 2001 – I was one year into graduate school and stilllearning my ways around the lab. I remember thinking to myself then whether the“best time” had passed, but the field certainly has not slowed down since. New labs
with better designed machines quickly emerged and made possible new experimentsthat required more refined technical capabilities and explored previously unattainable regimes. According to the latest count on the atom traps online database(http://www.uibk.ac.at/c/c7/c704/ultracold/atomtraps.html), there are now
about 50 groups worldwide having achieved BEC. The breadth of the research also expanded to quantum degenerate Fermi systems, which at present are the most actively
114

researched subjects.
As a junior graduate student, I did my share of grunt work that probably taught
me more about being an experimentalist than working on the scientific projects. In
addition to electronics and laser maintenance, notable undertakings included building
a new magnetic trap and “fiberizing” our laser table. The trap – fully built and benchtested – still sits around somewhere in the lab waiting to be called to duty. In themeantime, it serves as a quiet reminder of the importance to keep a good record ofbenchmarks. The “fiberized” laser table made our BEC production almost turn-andkey.
The field grew fast and became increasingly competitive. Consequently, our experiments also grew in complexity – the difference between our recent work comparedto three years ago in terms of technical difficulty is quite startling. Many parts haveto work simultaneously for an experiment to succeed, and we seemed to be constantly
trying to fix things faster than they broke. Mishaps with key components like thewater chiller (heavy lifting) or the gate-valve (venting the main chamber) provided
extra “excitement”. For all the hectic runs and seemingly endless chores, it was achallenge to keep one’s sanity and continue to think about and learn physics. Looking
back, I feel reasonably content with the way I have spent my time and energy. The
few breakthroughs in my studies would not have happened without a conscientious
effort to think through some difficult problems.
In light of the rapid progress of the field in general, my personal success seems
rather modest, which in part contributed to my decision to explore different directions
post-PhD. That said, I’d like to think I have nonetheless done my small part incontributing to the large body of work on condensate physics. Through this thesis, I
hope to have tied together and put into perspective the few projects to which I madesubstantial contributions.

115

6.2

Looking ahead

The lab is now entering a new era as the second lab at MIT capable of producing dualspecies quantum gases (23 Na and 6 Li). As complicated as our previous experiments
eventually became, the added layers of complexity still constituted no more thanincremental improvements to an existing system. In comparison, constructing a new
system with fundamentally different capabilities is much more likely to open up new
regimes and research directions. Adding fermionic 6 Li to an optical lattice certainlypresents intriguing possibilities.
6

Li has proven to be the most “benign” species for working with Feshbach res-onances. Most BEC systems suffer from strong inelastic collision losses near a Feshbach resonance which limited the density or the time duration of the experiments[152, 153, 118, 125, 154, 155, 156]. Fermions are generally longer-lived due to their different quantum statistics [122, 157, 158], but the exact lifetimes are still quite different– there are only two data points now, namely 40 K (a few milliseconds [159, 120, 160])
and 6 Li (hundreds of milliseconds [161, 162, 119, 121, 163]). In addition, the strong
Feshbach resonance for 6 Li is ∼ 300 G wide [150], which makes it possible to map
out the details of various interaction regimes with modest magnetic field resolution.
The long lifetime of 6 Li near this resonance allows the system to equilibrate. Unlike
the quantum degenerate 23 Na2 molecules described in Chapter 4, 6 Li2 can form true
molecular condensates 1 .
Across the Feshbach resonance, the scattering length changes sign, corresponding
to a bound state being shifted from below the continuum threshold to above. By
slowly ramping the magnetic field, it is possible to adiabatically connect the molecular BEC (positive scattering length) regime to the BCS regime (negative scattering
length) [164, 165, 162, 163, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175], where
superfluidity can only arise through Cooper pairing. Observing the BCS-type superfluidity had been the “Holy Grail” in the studies of quantum degenerate Fermi
systems since the very beginning. The recent observation of vortex lattice in 6 Li pro1

In contrast, “condensation” for 40 K2 was only achieved in two dimensions [120].

116

vided a spectacularly definite proof [176]. Rather than reaching the end of the road,one can hope to learn much more from these ultracold Fermi gases. In many ways,
they represent the closest thing to the conventional superconductors while (approximate) theories may still be able to model the experiments accurately – much likewhen the gaseous BEC was first realized. The critical temperature compared to the
Fermi temperature is much higher for these degenerate Fermi gases 2 , which may shedlight on the natures of high-temperature superconductors. Combining different tools
such as optical lattices and Feshbach resonances in addition to having two atomic
species could lead us into even more exotic regimes.
On the other hand, many challenges lie ahead. Like what happened with BEC,
after the initial slew of results brought on by the realization of a new system, theresearch becomes more difficult and requires deeper understandings of the physics
and/or more specialized engineering efforts. Oftentimes we started setting up an
experiment with a particular agenda but could not make it work as planned despite
our best effort. As an experimentalist, it is important to keep in mind that failingto see what one expects to see could very well be interesting physics. Therefore one
should not get too caught up in the original agenda.

2

Tc /TF is ∼ 0.3 for 6 Li, similar to high temperature conductors and more than 100 times higher
than normal superconductors.

117

Appendix A
Experimental Observation of the
Bogoliubov Transfromation for a
Bose-Einstein Condesed Gas
This appendix reprints Ref. [100]: J.M. Vogels, K. Xu, C. Raman, J.R. Abo-Shaeer,
and W. Ketterle, Experimental Observation of the Bogoliubov Transfromation for a
Bose-Einstein Condesed Gas, Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 060402 (2002).

118

VOLUME 88, NUMBER 6

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

11 FEBRUARY 2002

Experimental Observation of the Bogoliubov Transformation
for a Bose-Einstein Condensed Gas
J. M. Vogels, K. Xu, C. Raman,* J. R. Abo-Shaeer, and W. Ketterle†
Department of Physics, MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms, and Research Laboratory of Electronics,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139(Received 11 September 2001; published 28 January 2002)
Phonons with wave vector q兾 h̄ were optically imprinted into a Bose-Einstein condensate. Their momentum distribution was analyzed using Bragg spectroscopy with a high momentum transfer. The wave
function of the phonons was shown to be a superposition of 1q and 2q free particle momentum states, inagreement with the Bogoliubov quasiparticle picture.
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.88.060402

PACS numbers: 05.30.Jp, 03.75.Fi, 32.80. –t, 67.40.Db

The pioneering work of Bogoliubov in 1947 constitutes
the first microscopic theory that attributes superfluidity to
Bose-Einstein condensation [1]. As described by Einstein,
noninteracting bosons condense [2], but they are not superfluid. However, Bogoliubov showed that with weak interactions the condensate will exhibit superfluidity.
Repulsive interactions change the elementary excitations
at long wavelengths from free particles into phonons
which, according to the Landau criterion, lead to superfluidity [3]. The main step in the nonperturbative treatment is the Bogoliubov transformationyyb1q :苷 uq a1q 1 yq a2q ,y
b1q :苷 uq a1q 1 yq a2q,(1)transferred: hn 苷 Q 2 兾2m 1 Qp兾m, where the second
term is simply the Doppler shift [7–9]. The resulting
frequency spectrum shows three peaks corresponding to
the three momentum components (0, 1q, and 2q) of acondensate with phonons (see Fig. 2 below) [5].
The Bogoliubov spectrum for the energy of elementary
excitations is [10]sµ 2 ∂2q,(2)´共q兲 苷 q2 c2 12mpwhere c 苷 4p h̄ 2 an兾m, a is the scattering length, andn is the density. The amplitudes uq and yq in Eq. (1) are
given byq2

´共q兲 6 2m
uq , yq 苷 6 q.
q2
2 ´共q兲 2m(3)

which expresses the creation and annihilation operators bqy
and bq for Bogoliubov quasiparticles in terms of creation
and annihilation operators aqy and aq for free particles inmomentum states q. This transformation also plays a crucial role in general relativity, where it connects the particle
operators in different reference frames [4]. In this paper
we experimentally verify the Bogoliubov transformation
by generating quasiparticles with momentum 1q and observing that they are a superposition of 1q and 2q momentum states of free particles.
Following a recent suggestion of Brunello et al. [5],we perform an experiment that combines the two regimesof Bragg spectroscopy, where the momentum imparted
to the atoms is either smaller [6] or larger [7] than thesound velocity c times the mass m of the atoms. An
optical lattice moving through the condensate at the soundvelocity imprinted phonons with wavelengths equal to thespatial period of the lattice [6]. This was accomplishedby intersecting two laser beams at a small angle andchoosing their frequency difference to be equal to thephonon frequency. The momentum analysis of the phonon
wave function was performed by a second Bragg pulse
consisting of counterpropagating laser beams that transferred a large momentum Q (two photon recoils) to atoms
with initial momentum p. In the limit Q ¿ p, mc, theresonance frequency n is equal to the kinetic energy

The nontrivial aspect of the Bogoliubov transformation
manifests itself only at low momenta 共q ø mc兲, where
both amplitudes uq and yq are significant. In thisregime,the excitations are characterized by u ⬃ 2y ⬃p
mc兾2q ¿ 1 and ´共q兲 ⬃ qc. Such excitations arephonons, each involving many particles moving in both
directions. At high momenta 共q ¿ mc兲, uq ⬃ 1, yq ⬃ 0,and ´共q兲 苷 q2 兾2m 1 mc2 . These excitations are freeparticles with an energy shift equal to the chemical
potential m 苷 mc2 .
y
The phonon creation operator b1q [Eq. (1)] is a supery
position of the creation operator a1q for particles moving
in the 1q direction and the annihilation operator a2q forparticles moving in the 2q direction, yet the creation ofa phonon in the condensate implies an increase of particles moving in both the 1q and 2q direction. Indeed,
simple operatorpalgebra shows that a condensate with l exyl
citations, b1q 兾 l! jC0 典, contains luq2 1 yq2 free particles
moving with momentum 1q and 共l 1 1兲yq2 free particles
with momentum 2q. In its ground state the condensate
contains yq2 pairs of atoms with momenta 1q and 2q.
These pairs constitute the quantum depletion in the condensate wave function [10]060402-1© 2002 The American Physical Society

0031-9007兾02兾 88(6)兾060402(4)$20.00

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VOLUME 88, NUMBER 6

jC0 典 苷PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

Y 1 X̀ µ yq ∂j2
jn2q 苷 j, n1q 苷 j典 ,uq
qfi0 uq j苷0

(d)

(4)

where the remaining atoms are in the q 苷 0 momentum
ystate. When a1q and a2q act on C0 , terms with large occuy
pation numbers j are enhanced: a1q jn2q 苷 j, n1q 苷 j典 苷p
j 1 1 jn2q p
苷 j, n1q 苷 j 1 1典,
a2q jn2q 苷 j,
n1q 苷 j典 苷 j jn2q 苷 j 2 1, n1q 苷 j典.
In addition, 2q and 1q atoms occur only in pairs in the groundystate. Together, these two effects cause both a1q and a2q
to increase the number of atoms in both the 2q and 1q
states.
The experiments were performed with condensatesof 3 3 107 sodium atoms in a magnetic trap with radial and axial trapping frequencies of 37 and 7 Hz,
respectively [11]. The condensate had a peak density of
1.0 3 1014 cm23 corresponding to a chemical potentialof m 苷 h 3 1.5 kHz, a sound velocity of c 苷 5 mm兾s,
and a Thomas-Fermi radial radius of 32 mm. The Bragg
beams for the optical lattices were generated from acommon source of laser light 1.7 GHz red-detuned fromthe 3S1兾2 jF 苷 1典 to 3P3兾2 jF 0 苷 0, 1, 2典 transitions. The
lattices were moved radially through the cloud. Thiswas done to avoid the high collisional density along
the axial direction, where outcoupled atoms would haveundergone elastic collisions with the condensate [12].
The Bragg beams for imprinting the phonons were at anangle of 32 mrad with respect to one another, resulting
in a lattice spacing of ⬃9 mm and a recoil momentumof q 苷 m 3 1.9 mm兾s. The beams propagated at anangle of 0.4 rad with respect to the longitudinal axis of
the condensate and were linearly polarized perpendicular
to it. The frequency difference (“excitation frequency”)
between the two beams was chosen to be 400 Hz, corresponding to the frequency of the phonons. The excitation
pulse had to be long enough to ensure sufficient frequency
resolution in order to selectively excite 1q phonons, andno 2q phonons (see below). However, the excitation
pulse also had to be shorter than the transit time ofphonons through the condensate, since phonons accelerate
when they move through regions of varying density. We
chose small-angle Bragg beams 3 ms in duration withintensity 0.05 mW兾cm2 , corresponding to a two-photon
Rabi frequency of 50 Hz.
The momentum analysis of the phonons was performed
with two counterpropagating beams that imparted arecoil momentum of Q 苷 m 3 59 mm兾s onto the outcoupled atoms. The beams were polarized parallel to thelongitudinal axis of the condensate to suppress superradiant emission [13]. A frequency difference (“probe frequency”) of 100 kHz between the two beams corresponded
to the kinetic energy needed for atoms initially at rest toreach this recoil momentum. To gain recoil momentum
1Q, atoms with initial momentum 1q were resonant at
107 kHz (Fig. 1a). Atoms with momentum 2q were reso060402-2

11 FEBRUARY 2002

+q+Q

-q-Q
0
+q

-Q
+q-Q

+Q
-q+Q

(a)
(b)
(c)

FIG. 1. Momentum distribution of a condensate with phonons.
After imprinting 1q phonons into the condensate, momentum
analysis via Bragg spectroscopy transfers a momentum 6Q(two-photon recoil) to the atoms. Absorption images after 40 ms
time of flight in (a), (b), and (c) show the condensate in the centerand outcoupled atoms to the right and left for probe frequenciesof 94, 100, and 107 kHz, respectively. The small clouds centeredat 1q are phonons that were converted to free particles. The
size of the images is 25 3 2.2 mm. (d) The outlined region in(a) – (c) is magnified, and clearly shows outcoupled atoms with
momenta Q 6 q, implying that phonons with wave vector q兾 h̄have both 1q and 2q free particle momentum components.

nant at 94 kHz (Fig. 1b). In our experiment, a retroreflected beam containing both optical frequencies resulted in two optical lattices moving at the same speed in
opposite directions. This led to simultaneous outcouplingof 1q and 2q atoms in opposite directions. Theselarge-angle Bragg beams were pulsed on for 0.5 ms.
The probe pulse had to be long enough to selectively
excite atoms with 6q momentum, but also shorter thanh兾m for the mean-field energy to be negligible during
the readout. Each frequency component had an intensityof 0.7 mW兾cm2 , corresponding to a two-photon Rabi
frequency of 700 Hz. Subsequently, the trap was turned
off and a resonant absorption image was taken after 40 msof ballistic expansion.
Figure 1 shows typical absorption images for various
probe frequencies. The quasiparticle nature of the phonons
was directly evident (see outlined region) in the time-offlight distribution through the presence of the peaks at momenta 6q 1 Q. These peaks had well-defined momentum
because the outcoupled atoms left the condensate quickly(during this time the atoms’ velocity changed by less than
the speed of sound [14]). This “photograph” of the Bogoliubov transformation is the central result of this paper.
We now discuss the different momentum components
distinguishable in Fig. 1: (i) The original condensate isin the center. (ii) The condensate is asymmetrically extended towards positive momenta. This is due to imprinted
phonons of momentum q that were converted to free particles during the ballistic expansion. Previously this signature was used to determine the structure factor of acondensate [6]. There is no momentum component in the060402-2

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

11 FEBRUARY 2002

3(a)Number of Outcoupled Atoms [10 ]phonons were excited. This second peak represents the ycomponent of the phonons.
According to Eq. (3) the ratio of the two peaks, yq2 兾u2q ,should be smaller at lower density. This is confirmed inFig. 3b, which shows the excitation spectrum at low density. The density was lowered by a factor of 2 by weakening the axial trap frequency to 4 Hz and reducing thenumber of atoms in the condensate by a factor of 3. The
scatter in the data could be due to residual sloshing, shotto-shot fluctuations in the size of the condensate, or nonlinear effects (see below).
The dashed line is the theoretical prediction with no freeparameters (except the vertical scale). It was obtained byintegrating Eq. (3) over the inhomogeneous density distribution of the condensate and by accounting for the finite
length of the square excitation pulse, which broadens theline and causes the extra sidelobes at about 900 Hz. The
theory assumes the validity of a perturbative approach, i.e.,that the excitation pulse is weak.
Ideally, both Bragg pulses should affect only a few
percent of the atoms, as in previous experiments [6,7].

(b)

40
30
20
10
0
-1000

-500
0
500
Excitation Frequency [Hz]

1000

-1000

-500
0
500
Excitation Frequency [Hz]

1000

3

Number of Outcoupled Atoms [10 ]3opposite direction, because we did not create 2q phonons(see below). The smearing of the observed momentum
distribution may be caused by acceleration due to the inhomogeneous density distribution of the condensate when
the trap was switched off. (iii) The two components with
momentum 1Q and 2Q are atoms outcoupled from thecondensate at rest. The symmetry of the 6Q peaks, aswell as the position of the main condensate, served as
an indicator as to whether the condensate was undergoing dipole oscillation during the experiment. Images thatshowed such “sloshing” (caused by technical noise) were
excluded from further analysis. (iv) Atoms at 1q 1 Q(Fig. 1c) and 1q 2 Q (Fig. 1a) are coupled out from the
1q component of the phonons. (v) Atoms at 2q 2 Q(Fig. 1c) and 2q 1 Q (Fig. 1a) are coupled out from the
2q component of the phonons.
Quantitative information was obtained by scanning theprobe frequency and measuring the number of outcoupledatoms in the three peaks around 2Q (See Fig. 1). Without
phonons only the condensate peak is observed. The excitation of phonons at wave vector 1q creates momentum
sidebands at momentum 6q. The 2q peak is expected
to be smaller by a factor yq2 兾uq2 . This effect is evident in
Fig. 2, but with a poor signal-to-noise ratio.
The excitation of the phonons was characterized byscanning the frequency difference of the small-angle Bragg
beams (Fig. 3a) and measuring the number of outcoupledatoms at 1q 2 Q. The probe frequency was kept at
94 kHz because the momenta of the excited phonons remained fixed. The observation of two distinct peaks (corresponding to 1q at 400 Hz and 2q phonons at 2400 Hz)
confirms that there was sufficient resolution to excite only
1q phonons and suppress the off-resonant excitation of
2q phonons. The higher peak represents the u component of 1q phonons excited at positive excitation frequencies. When the excitation frequency became negative, 2q

Number of Outcoupled Atoms [10 ]VOLUME 88, NUMBER 6

140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
90

95

100
105
Probe Frequency [kHz]110

FIG. 2. Bragg spectrum of a condensate with (䊉) and without(䊊) phonon excitation. The number of outcoupled atoms vs theprobe frequency is shown. The excitation of phonons creates
sidebands on both sides of the central condensate peak. At
about 100 kHz, the absorption images were saturated due tohigh optical density.

060402-3

120
100
80
60
40
20
0

FIG. 3. Phonon excitation spectrum. Atoms with initial momentum 1q were detected by setting the probe frequency to
94 kHz and measuring the number of atoms with momentum
2Q 1 q. The two peaks reflect that phonons with 1q兾 h̄ and2q兾 h̄ wave vectors have free particle components with momentum 1q. Spectra were taken at (a) high density (1.0 31014 cm23 ) and (b) low density (0.5 3 1014 cm23 ). The solidline, a fit to the sum of two Gaussians, is intended to guide theeye. The dashed line is the theoretical prediction.

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VOLUME 88, NUMBER 6

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

However, because our signal was the product of the twooutcoupling efficiencies, we needed to work at muchhigher outcoupled fractions. We estimate that the excitation pulse transferred 10% of the condensate atoms into
the phonon state, and that the probe pulse outcoupled 40%of these atoms on resonance.
Both Bragg processes (stimulated Rayleigh scattering)should depend only on the product of the two intensities.
Therefore, changing the sign of the excitation frequency
should not affect the number of phonons generated (assuming a stationary condensate). However, when the signof the excitation frequency was changed in our experiment, the observed number of phonons differed. This ismost likely due to superradiance [13], which is sensitive
to the individual intensities. Therefore, the asymmetry inphonon number was eliminated by ensuring equal intensities in the two beams. Additionally, there was a substantial loss (⬃50%) of condensate atoms due to superradiant
Rayleigh scattering. Both superradiant effects could befurther suppressed using light further detuned from resonance. However, in our case this would have required
an additional laser. Given these experimental limitations,the agreement between experiment and theory in Fig. 3 issatisfactory.
In this work we have used large-angle Bragg pulses
to analyze the momentum structure of the phonon wave
function. In principle, this could have also been achievedby removing the mean-field interaction within a timeh兾´共q兲 and then probing the velocity distribution of theparticles. This is not possible with ordinary ballistic
expansion because the reduction of the interactions is too
slow, taking place on a time scale of the trapping period.
However, the use of a Feshbach resonance [15] would
provide an effective method for suddenly reducing themean-field interaction.
In conclusion, we have experimentally analyzed thephonon wave function in a Bose-Einstein condensate.
Following recent theoretical work [5], the two-component
character of Bogoliubov quasiparticles was observedin the frequency domain (Fig. 2). In addition, the momentum components of the phonon wave function werediscriminated by their final momenta after the probe
pulse (Fig. 1). By combining momentum and frequency

060402-4

11 FEBRUARY 2002

selectivity, we were able to directly photograph the
Bogoliubov transformation (Fig. 1d), demonstrating thepower of Bragg spectroscopy to analyze nontrivial wave
functions. This method may also be applicable to studying
the many-body and vortex states [8] of dilute atomic
Bose-Einstein condensates.
This work was funded by ONR, NSF, ARO, NASA, andthe David and Lucile Packard Foundation. We are grateful
to A. Brunello and S. Stringari for insightful discussions.

*Current address: School of Physics, Georgia Institute ofTechnology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332.
†
Group website: http://cua.mit.edu/ketterle_group/[1] N. N. Bogoliubov, J. Phys. (USSR) 11, 23 (1947).
[2] A. Einstein, Sitzungsber. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Bericht 3, 18(1925).
[3] L. D. Landau, J. Phys. (USSR) 5, 71 (1941).
[4] N. Birell and P. Davies, Quantum Fields in Curved Space(Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1982).
[5] A. Brunello, F. Dalfovo, L. Pitaevskii, and S. Stringari,Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 4422 (2000).
[6] D. M. Stamper-Kurn, A. P. Chikkatur, A. Görlitz, S. Inouye,
S. Gupta, D. E. Pritchard, and W. Ketterle, Phys. Rev. Lett.
83, 2876 (1999).
[7] J. Stenger, S. Inouye, A. P. Chikkatur, D. M. Stamper-Kurn,
D. E. Pritchard, and W. Ketterle, Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 4569
(1999).
[8] F. Zambelli, L. Pitaevskii, D. M. Stamper-Kurn, and S.
Stringari, Phys. Rev. A 61, 063608 (2000).
[9] P. B. Blakie, R. J. Ballagh, and C. W. Gardiner, cond-mat/
0108480.
[10] K. Huang, Statistical Mechanics (Wiley, New York, 1987).
[11] R. Onofrio, D. S. Durfee, C. Raman, M. Köhl, C. E. Kuklewicz, and W. Ketterle, Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 810 (2000).
[12] A. P. Chikkatur, A. Görlitz, D. M. Stamper-Kurn, S. Inouye,
S. Gupta, and W. Ketterle, Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 483 (2000).
[13] S. Inouye, A. P. Chikkatur, D. M. Stamper-Kurn, J. Stenger,
D. E. Pritchard, and W. Ketterle, Science 285, 571 (1999).
[14] E. W. Hagley, L. Deng, M. Kozuma, J. Wen, K. Helmerson,
S. L. Rolston, and W. D. Phillips, Science 283, 1706 (1999).
[15] S. Inouye, M. R. Andrews, J. Stenger, H.-J. Miesner, D. M.
Stamper-Kurn, and W. Ketterle, Nature (London) 392, 151(1998).

060402-4

Appendix B
Generation of Macroscopic
Pair-Correlated Atomic Beams by
Four-Wave Mixing in
Bose-Einstein Condesates
This appendix reprints Ref. [39]: J.M. Vogels, K. Xu, and W. Ketterle, Generation ofMacroscopic Pair-Correlated Atomic Beams by Four-Wave Mixing in Bose-Einstein
Condesates, Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 020401 (2002).

123

VOLUME 89, NUMBER 2

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

8 JULY 2002

Generation of Macroscopic Pair-Correlated Atomic Beams by Four-Wave Mixing in
Bose-Einstein Condensates
J. M. Vogels, K. Xu, and W. Ketterle*
Department of Physics, MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms,
Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139(Received 13 March 2002; published 24 June 2002)
By colliding two Bose-Einstein condensates, we have observed strong bosonic stimulation of the elastic
scattering process. When a weak input beam was applied as a seed, it was amplified by a factor of 20.
This large gain atomic four-wave mixing resulted in the generation of two macroscopically occupied
pair-correlated atomic beams.
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.89.020401

PACS numbers: 05.30.Jp, 03.75.Fi, 32.80. –t, 67.40.Db

In a gaseous Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), all theatoms occupy the ground state of the system [1]. Once
BEC has been achieved, the initial well-defined quantum
state can be transformed into other more complex states bymanipulating it with magnetic and optical fields. This canresult in a variety of time-dependent macroscopic wave
functions [1], including oscillating condensates, multiple
condensates moving relative to each other, an output coupler, and rotating condensates with vortex lattices. Suchmacroscopically occupied quantum states represent classical matter-wave fields in the same way an optical laser
beam is a classical electromagnetic wave. The next major step involves engineering nonclassical states of atoms
that feature quantum entanglement and correlations. Thesestates are important for quantum information processing,subshot noise precision measurements [2], and tests ofquantum nonlocality.
Quantum correlations in the BEC ground state have been
observed in a BEC held in optical lattices [2–4]. The repulsive interactions between the atoms within each latticesite force the occupation numbers to equalize, resulting
in a number squeezed state. Alternatively, correlations
in a BEC can be created in a dynamic or transient way
through interatomic collisions. At the low densities typical of current experiments, binary collisions dominate, creating correlated pairs of atoms. Because of momentum
conservation, the pair-correlated atoms scatter into modes
with opposite momenta in the center-of-mass frame, resulting in squeezing of the number difference between thesemodes [5–7]. Our work is an implementation of the suggestions in Refs. [5,6]. However, we use elastic scattering
processes instead of spin flip collisions to create pair correlations because the elastic collision rate is much higher
than the spin flip rate. This was essential to observe large
amplification before further elastic collisions led to losses.
Elastic scattering between two BEC’s produces a collisional halo [8], where the number of atoms moving into opposing solid angles is the same, corresponding to number
squeezing. Once these modes are occupied, the scattering
process is further enhanced by bosonic stimulation. The
onset of such an enhancement was observed in Ref. [8].

In this paper, we report strong amplification, corresponding to a gain of at least 20. Based on a theoretical prediction [6], which drew an analogy to optical superradiance[9], we expected to obtain a highly anisotropic gain using
our cigar-shaped condensate. However, this mechanismof mode selection proved to be irrelevant for our experiment, because atoms do not leave the condensate during
amplification (see below). Instead, we preselected a single
pair-correlated mode by seeding it with a weak third matter wave, and observed that up to 40% of the atoms scattered into it. Because the scattered atoms are perfectly paircorrelated, the only fluctuations in the number difference
between the two beams stem from number fluctuations in
the initial seed. Therefore, an observed gain of 20 implies
that wephave improved upon the shot-noise limit by a factor of 40, although this was not directly observed. Sucha four-wave mixing process with matter waves had only
been observed previously with a gain of 1.5 [10,11].
This experiment was performed with sodium condensates of ⬃30 million atoms in a cigar-shaped magnetic trapwith radial and axial trap frequencies of 80 and 20 Hz, respectively. Such condensates had a mean field energy of
4.4 kHz, a speed of sound of 9 mm兾s, and radial and axial
Thomas-Fermi radii of 25 and 100 mm, respectively. The
second condensate and the seed wave were generated by
optical Bragg transitions to other momentum states. Figure 1 shows the geometry of the Bragg beams. Four laser
beams were derived from the same laser that was 100 GHz
red detuned from the sodium D2 line. The large detuning prevented optical superradiance [9]. All beams propagated at approximately the same angle of ⬃0.35 rad withrespect to the long axis of the condensate, and could be
individually switched on and off to form beam pairs to excite two-photon Bragg transitions [12] at different recoil
momenta.
The seed wave was created by a weak 20 ms Bragg
pulse of beams with momenta p3 and p2 , which coupled 1%–2% of the atoms into the momentum state ks 苷
p3 2 p2 , with a velocity ⬃15 mm兾s. Subsequently, a
40 ms p兾2 pulse of beams p1 and p2 splits the condensate into two strong source waves with momenta k1 苷 0020401-1© 2002 The American Physical Society

0031-9007兾02兾 89(2)兾020401(4)$20.00

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FIG. 1. Arrangement of laser beams to generate three atomic
wave packets: (a) Four Bragg beams intersected at the condensate. (b) Two source waves and a small seed were created with
Bragg beam pairs. (c) The four-wave mixing process amplified
the seed and created a fourth wave. Both were subsequently
read out with another Bragg pulse. The figures are projections
on a plane perpendicular to the condensate axis. All wave packets move within this plane.

and k2 苷 p1 2 p2 (see Fig. 1b), corresponding to a relative velocity of ⬃20 mm兾s. The four-wave mixing process
involving these three waves led to an exponential growthof the seed wave, while a fourth conjugate wave at momentum k4 苷 k1 1 k2 2 ks emerged and also grew exponentially (Fig. 1c). The Bragg beams were arranged insuch a way that the phase matching condition was fulfilled [the sum of the kinetic energies of the source waves
共⬃11 kHz兲 matched the energy of the seed and the fourthwave]. The effect of any energy mismatch on the process
will be discussed later. The four-wave mixing process wasanalyzed by absorption imaging [1]. Figure 2c shows the
key result of this paper qualitatively: A small seed andits conjugate wave were amplified to a size where a significant fraction of the initial condensate atoms had beentransferred into this pair-correlated mode.
To study this process, we applied “readout” beams p2
and p4 for 40 ms, interrupting the amplification after avariable growth period between 0 and 600 ms. {Turning off the trap after a variable amount of time is insuf(a)(b)

ficient in this case because the density decreases on thetime scale of the trapping period [1兾(80 Hz)], while theamplification occurs more rapidly.} The frequency difference between the two readout beams was selected suchthat a fixed fraction of the seed (fourth) wave was coupled
out to a different momentum state kr 苷 ks 1 p4 2 p2
共k0r 苷 k4 1 p2 2 p4 兲 (Fig. 1c). kr or k0r did not experience further amplification due to the constraint of energy
conservation and therefore could be used to monitor theatom number in the seed (fourth) wave during the fourwave mixing process (Fig. 3).
The growth of the 2% seed and the fourth wave areshown in Fig. 4. As expected, the growth rates were foundto increase with the mean field energy. Eventually, the amplification slowed down and stopped as the source waves
were depleted. This is in contrast to Ref. [10,13], where
the mixing process was slow (due to much lower mean fieldenergy), and the growth time was limited by the overlap
time of the wave packets. In our experiment, the overlap
time was *1.8 ms, whereas the growth stopped alreadyafter &500 ms.
A simple model describes the salient features of theprocess. The Hamiltonian of a weakly interacting Bose
condensate is given by [11]H苷X h̄2 k 2k2mâky âk 1

2p h̄2 a X y yâ â âk âk ,mV k1 1k2 k1 k2 3 4(1)

苷k3 1k4

where k denotes the wave vectors of the plane wave states,
m is the mass, V is the quantization volume, âki is the annihilation operator, and a 苷 2.75 nm is the scattering length.
If two momentum states k1 and k2 are highly occupied
relative to all other states (with occupation numbers N1 andN2 ), the initial depletion of k1 and k2 can be neglected.
Therefore, the only interactions are mean field interactions (self-interactions) and scattering involving k1 andk2 . In the Heisenberg picture, the difference between the(c)FIG. 2. High-gain four-wave mixing of matter waves. The
wave packets separated during 43 ms of ballistic expansion. The
absorption images [1] were taken along the axis of the condensate. (a) Only a 1% seed was present (barely visible), (b) only
two source waves were created and no seed, and (c) two source
waves and the seed underwent the four-wave mixing process
where the seed wave and the fourth wave grew to a size comparable to the source waves. The gray circular background consistsof spontaneously emitted atom pairs that were subsequently amplified to around 20 atoms per mode. The crosses mark thecenter position of the unperturbed condensate. The field of viewis 1.8 mm wide.

020401-2

8 JULY 2002

(a)

(b)

FIG. 3. Absorption images after a readout pulse was applied
to (a) the seed wave and (b) the fourth wave. The thick arrows
indicate the readout process. The readout pulse was kept short
共40 ms兲, resulting in a large Fourier bandwidth and off-resonant
coupling to other wave packets indicated by the narrow arrows.
However, this did not affect the readout signal (atoms in thedashed box).

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PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

Normalized Intensity of Seed Wave

(a)
12

8

µ=4.4kHz4µ=2.2kHz
1
0
0

200
400
Amplification Time [µs]600

Normalized Intensity of Fourth Wave

(b)

8

4

µ=4.4kHzµ=2.2kHz

0
0

200
400
Amplification Time [µs]600FIG. 4. Generation of pair-correlated atomic beams. The
growth of (a) a 2% seed and (b) its conjugate fourth wave areshown for two different chemical potentials m. The intensitiesof the waves were determined by counting the number ofatoms in the dashed boxes in Fig. 3 and were normalized to theintensity of the initial seed. The solid lines and dashed lines
are fits to the initial growth according to Eq. (4) with growth
rates of 共170 ms兲21 and 共100 ms兲21 , respectively.

occupations of the mode pairs Dn̂ 苷 âky1 âk1 2 âky2 âk2 istime independent for any k1 1 k2 苷 k1 1 k2 . Therefore, the fluctuations in the number difference 具Dn̂2 典 2
具Dn̂典2 remain constant even though the occupations growin time. The result is two-mode number squeezing. Thisis equivalent to a nondegenerate parametric amplifier; theHamiltonians for both systems are identical [14].
When calculating the occupations 具âky1 âk1 典, 具âky2 âk2 典 andthe correlation 具âk1 âk2 典, the relevant physical parametersarep
4p h̄2 am 苷 m1 m2 ,mi 苷
Ni
共i 苷 1, 2兲 ,
mV
h̄k12
h̄k22
h̄k21
h̄k22
m1
m2 (2)
Dv 苷
1
2
2
1
1
,
2m
2m
2m
2m
h̄
h̄
where m is the (geometric) average mean field energy of
the two source waves, and h̄Dv is the energy mismatchfor the scattering of atoms from states k1 and k2 to states
020401-3

8 JULY 2002

k1 and k2 . One obtains exponential growth for k1 and k2
if m . h̄Dv兾4, and the growth rate is given by
sµ ∂
∂
µ
Dv 2
2m 2
2
.
(3)
h苷
h̄
2
For our initial conditions with s atoms in the seed wave
ks and an empty fourth wave k4 , the correlation 具âks âk4 典
starts to grow asq
j具âks âk4 典j 苷

2m 4m2 cosh共ht兲2 2

Dv 2
4

h2
3 sinh共ht兲 共s 1 1兲 .

This leads to exponential growth of the occupation numbers [10,13]:
∑
∏2
2m
y
具âks âks 典 苷
sinh共ht兲 共s 1 1兲 1 s ,
h̄h
∑
∏2
(4)
2m
y
sinh共ht兲 共s 1 1兲 .
具âk4 âk4 典 苷h̄hEquations (3) and (4) show that, for a large mean fieldenergy m, Dv can be quite large without suppressing thefour-wave mixing process. When Dv . 4m兾h̄, one has toreplace the hyperbolic sine functions
p in Eq. (4) with sinefunctions and h in Eq. (3) with 共Dv兾2兲2 2 共2m兾h̄兲2 .
The occupations in states ks and k4 still grow initially,
but then they begin to oscillate. The above solution also
applies to initially empty modes with s 苷 0.
We can estimate the maximum growth rate 共2m兾h̄兲 forour experiment by using the average mean field energy
across the condensate to obtain 共53 ms兲21 for high and共110 ms兲21 for low mean field energy. The experimental
data exhibit a somewhat slower growth rate of 共100 ms兲21
and 共170 ms兲21 , respectively. This discrepancy is not surprising since our theoretical model does not take into account depletion and possible decoherence processes dueto the finite size and inhomogeneity of a magneticallytrapped condensate. We also observed that the angles of
the Bragg beams and therefore the energy mismatch Dv
could be significantly varied without substantially affecting the four-wave mixing process, confirming the robustness [see Eq. (3)] of four-wave mixing.
In addition to the four distinct wave packets, Fig. 2
also shows a circular background of atoms that are scattered from the source waves k1 and k2 into other pairs of
initially empty modes k1 and k2 共k1 1 k2 苷 k1 1 k2 兲.
The scattered atoms lie on a spherical shell in momentum
space centered at 共k1 1 k2 兲兾2 with pa radius jkj close to
jk1 2 k2 j兾2 and a width jDkj ⬃ m 2pm兾t h̄3 兾jkj [13].
As time progresses, the thickness jDkj narrows due to the
exponential gain.
Eventually, the population of these background modes
contributes to the depletion of the source waves. One canestimate the depletion time td of the source waves by comparing the total population in these modes to the original
number of atoms. This sets a ptheoretical limit
p on the gain
4mtd 兾 h̄
兾4 given by 4G兾 ln共4G兲 苷 2p兾jkja. ForG苷e020401-3

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our geometry jkja 苷 0.01 and G 苷 160. In our condensate of 3 3 107 atoms, this maximum gain is achieved
when all the atoms are scattered into the 9 3 104 pairmodes in the momentum shell. With a 1% seed, the source
waves are depleted earlier, leading to a maximum gain of37, where we measured a gain of 20. For a 2% seed themeasured gain was 10 (see Fig. 4).
In our experiment, we deliberately reduced the velocity between the two source waves to twice the speed ofsound in order to increase G and also the overlap time between the two source waves. Under these circumstances,
the thickness of the shell jDkj becomes close to its radius,
accounting for the uniform background of scattered atoms
rather than the thin s-wave halo observed in Ref. [8]. For
velocities around or below the speed of sound, the condensate will not separate from the other waves in ballistic
expansion.
Once the amplified modes are populated, losses due tofurther collisions occur at a rate G ⬃ 8pa2 n h̄jkj兾m per
atom (n is the number density of atoms). In order tohave net gain, the growth rate h should be greater than G,
which is the case since h兾G 苷 1兾jkja 苷 100 ¿ 1. Furthermore, we begin to lose squeezing when s 1 1 atoms
are lost from the mode pair that occurs approximately at again of e4mt兾 h̄ 兾4 苷 1兾jkja. At this point, the condensate
is already highly depleted. In our experiment, however, theshell of amplified modes is so thick that it includes many ofthe modes into which atoms are scattered and increases thescattering rate by bosonic stimulation. Ideally, the atomic
beams should separate after maximum gain is achieved.
However, for our condensate size, the waves overlap fora much longer time and suffer collisional losses. This isvisible in Fig. 2, where 40% of the atoms were transferredto the seeded mode pair, but only ⬃10% survived the ballistic expansion.
The collisional amplification process studied here bears
similarities to the superradiant Rayleigh scattering of lightfrom a Bose condensate [9], where correlated photon-atompairs are generated in the end-fire mode for the photons andthe corresponding recoil mode for the atoms. However,there are significant differences between the two processes.
In optical superradiance, the scattered photons leave thecondensate very quickly, causing only the recoiled atoms
to maintain the coherence and undergo exponential growth.
This physical situation is reflected in the Markov approximation adopted in Refs. [6,15]. In contrast, the atoms
move slowly in collisional amplification, and the Markov
approximation does not hold (although it was applied inRef. [6]). The energy uncertainty DE 苷 h̄兾Dt for a process of duration Dt gives a longitudinal momentum widthof DE兾y, where y is the speed of light for photons or thevelocity of the scattered atoms. This shows that opticalsuperradiance is much more momentum selective: The
shell in momentum space is infinitesimally thin, and only
the atomic modes with maximal overlap with this shell are
selected. In contrast, the shell in collisional amplification
is many modes thick and does not lead to strong mode
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8 JULY 2002

selection. Moreover, in optical superradiance the light iscoherently emitted by the entire condensate, whereas collisional amplification reflects only local properties of thecondensate, because the atoms do not move significantly
compared to the size of the condensate. Therefore, features like growth rate, maximum amplification, and even
whether mode pairs stay squeezed do not depend on global
parameters such as size or shape.
In conclusion, we have observed high gain in atomic
four-wave mixing and produced pair-correlated atomic
beams. We have also identified some limitations for using
collisions to create such twin beams, including loss by
subsequent collisions, and competition between othermodes with similar gain.
We thank Michael Moore for useful discussions and forsending us early drafts of his recent theory paper [16]. The
conclusions of his paper agree with ours. We also thankJames Anglin and Peter Zoller for helpful interactions,
Jamil Abo-Shaeer for experimental assistance, and Jit Kee
Chin for critical reading of the manuscript. This work was
funded by ONR, NSF, ARO, NASA, and the David andLucile Packard Foundation.

*Group website: http://cua.mit.edu/ketterle_group/[1] Bose-Einstein Condensation in Atomic Gases, Proceedingsof the International School of Physics “Enrico Fermi,”
Course CXL, edited by M. Inguscio, S. Stringari, and C. E.
Wieman (IOS Press, Amsterdam, 1999).
[2] C. Orzel, A. K. Tuchman, M. L. Fenselau, M. Yasuda, and
M. A. Kasevich, Science 291, 2386 (2001).
[3] D. Jaksch, H. J. Briegel, J. I. Cirac, C. W. Gardiner, andP. Zoller, Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 1975 (1999).
[4] M. Greiner, O. Mandel, T. Esslinger, T. W. Hänsch, and
I. Bloch, Nature (London) 415, 30 (2002).
[5] L.-M. Duan, A. Sörensen, J. I. Cirac, and P. Zoller, Phys.
Rev. Lett. 85, 3991 (2000).
[6] H. Pu and P. Meystre, Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 3987 (2000).
[7] A. Sørensen, L.-M. Duan, J. I. Cirac, and P. Zoller, Nature(London) 409, 63 (2001).
[8] A. P. Chikkatur, A. Görlitz, D. M. Stamper-Kurn, S. Inouye,
S. Gupta, and W. Ketterle, Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 483 (2000).
[9] S. Inouye, A. P. Chikkatur, D. M. Stamper-Kurn, J. Stenger,
D. E. Pritchard, and W. Ketterle, Science 285, 571 (1999).
[10] L. Deng, E. W. Hagley, J. Wen, M. Trippenbach, Y. Band,
P. S. Julienne, J. E. Simsarian, K. Helmerson, S. L. Rolston,and W. D. Phillips, Nature (London) 398, 218 (1999).
[11] M. Trippenbach, Y. B. Band, and P. S. Julienne, Phys. Rev.
A 62, 023608 (2000).
[12] J. Stenger, S. Inouye, A. P. Chikkatur, D. M. Stamper-Kurn,
D. E. Pritchard, and W. Ketterle, Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 4569
(1999).
[13] V. A. Yurovsky, Phys. Rev. A 65, 033605 (2002).
[14] D. F. Walls and G. J. Milburn, Quantum Optics (SpringerVerlag, Berlin, 1995).
[15] M. G. Moore and P. Meystre, Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 5202
(1999).
[16] A. Vardi and M. G. Moore, cond-mat/0201590.

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Appendix C
Formation of Quantum-Degenerate
Sodium Molecules
This appendix reprints Ref. [118]: K. Xu, T. Mukaiyama, J.R. Abo-Shaeer, J.K. Chin,
D.E. Miller, and W. Ketterle, Formation of Quantum-Degenerate Sodium Molecules,
Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 210402 (2003).

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Formation of Quantum-Degenerate Sodium Molecules
K. Xu, T. Mukaiyama, J. R. Abo-Shaeer, J. K. Chin, D. E. Miller, and W. Ketterle
Department of Physics, MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms, and Research Laboratory of Electronics, MIT,
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA(Received 1 October 2003; published 21 November 2003)
Ultracold sodium molecules were produced from an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate by ramping anapplied magnetic field across a Feshbach resonance. More than 105 molecules were generated with aconversion efficiency of 4%. Using laser light resonant with an atomic transition, the remaining atoms
could be selectively removed, preventing fast collisional relaxation of the molecules. Time-of-flightanalysis of the pure molecular sample yielded an instantaneous phase-space density greater than 20.
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.91.210402

PACS numbers: 03.75.Nt, 32.80.Pj, 33.80.Ps, 34.20.Cf

Atomic Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) provide a
new window into macroscopic quantum phenomena [1].
A molecular condensate could lead to a host of newscientific explorations. These include quantum gaseswith anisotropic dipolar interactions, tests of fundamental symmetries such as the search for a permanent electric
dipole moment, study of rotational and vibrational energy
transfer processes, and coherent chemistry, where reactants and products are in coherent quantum superposition
states. So far, the highly successful techniques for creating atomic BEC have not led to success for molecules.
Laser cooling is difficult due to the complicated levelstructure of molecules [2], and evaporative cooling requires the preparation of a dense gas of molecules, whereelastic collisions dominate inelastic collisions.
Alternative techniques, such as buffer gas loading [3]and Stark deceleration [4], have been successful in obtaining cold molecules. Yet these methods are still far
from achieving the requisite phase-space density for
BEC. The difficulty in cooling molecules directly canbe circumvented by creating ultracold molecules fromquantum-degenerate atomic samples. This requires molecule formation without release of energy, which can beaccomplished either by photoassociation [5] or by ‘‘tuning’’ a molecular state via a Feshbach resonance [6] to bedegenerate with the atomic state. A Feshbach resonanceoccurs when an applied magnetic field Zeeman shifts amolecular state to zero binding energy. By ramping an
external field across a Feshbach resonance from negative
to positive scattering length, translationally cold molecules in high vibrational states can be created adiabatically [7–9].
The first observation of a Feshbach resonance in ultracold atoms showed a high rate of atom loss [6,10].
Theories accounted for this loss by assuming the formation of ultracold molecules [7,8,11]. These molecules werepredicted to decay vibrationally in less than 100 s due
to a two-body rate coefficient of order 1010 cm3 =s.
Because of this, no successful attempt was made to detecta molecular signature until atom-molecule beats wereobserved in 85 Rb, lasting about 100 s [12]. Recent fermion experiments using magnetic field sweeps have ob-served molecules with lifetimes approaching 1 s [13–16].
Until now, similar experiments with bosons have been
carried out only during ballistic expansion [17,18].
According to theory, the decay of molecules composedof fermionic atoms is suppressed by Pauli blocking [19],whereas molecules composed of bosons decay rapidly.
This could explain the low conversion efficiency of about
5% for bosons, compared to > 50% for fermions, wheremore adiabatic field ramps are possible.
If highly degenerate atoms (both fermionic and bosonic) are converted adiabatically to molecules, the molecules can be created at a phase-space density exceeding
2.6, the critical value at which a uniform, ideal Bose gas
condenses [20]. Previous experiments [14,18,21] havemeasured or estimated conditions close to or aroundthis critical phase-space density.
Here we report the production of trapped sodium molecules from an atomic BEC. The initial phase-space density of the molecular sample was measured in excess of
20. High phase-space density could only be achieved by
rapidly removing residual atoms, before atom-molecule
collisions caused trap loss and heating. This was accomplished by a new technique for preparing pure molecular
clouds, where light resonant with an atomic transition
selectively ‘‘blasted’’ unpaired atoms from the trap. In
contrast to spatial separation via a Stern-Gerlach method[17,18], this technique can separate out the molecules
faster and does not require a large difference in themagnetic moments of the atoms and molecules.
To generate the molecules, sodium condensates in the
jF  1; mF  1i state were prepared in an optical dipole trap. The radial and axial trap frequencies of !r 
2  290 Hz and !z  2  2:2 Hz, respectively, gave
Thomas-Fermi radii of Rr  5 m and Rz  650 m,
and a peak density of 1:7  1014 cm3 for 5  106 atoms
atoms. An adiabatic radio frequency sweep was used totransfer the atoms into the j1; 1i state, which has a 1 G
wide Feshbach resonance at 907 G [6,22].
After 1 s equilibration in the optical trap, the molecules
were generated using the field ramping scheme illustrated
in Fig. 1(a). An applied magnetic field was ramped in100 ms to 4 G below the 907 G Feshbach resonance.

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The field was generated using a pair of large bias andsmall antibias coils. Because molecules are only created
when sweeping across the resonance from negative topositive scattering length, the field was stepped up to
913 G as quickly as possible (1 s) to jump over the
resonance with minimal atom loss. After allowing 2.5 ms
for transient field fluctuation to damp out, the field wasramped down in time down . Because of atom-molecule
coupling, part of the atomic population was transferred
into the molecular state following the Landau-Zener
avoided crossing. With the given width of the resonanceand the atomic density, we use a simple Landau-Zenermodel to calculate a ramp speed of 104 G=s to transfer
roughly half the atoms to the molecular state [7,8,11].
However, inelastic collisions led to fast decay for boththe atoms and the molecules near the resonance. We foundthat a faster ramp speed of 105 G=s(corresponding todown  50 s) gave optimal results. The conversion efficiency of atoms to molecules was 4%. Slower ramp
speeds resulted in a similar number of molecules, but at
higher temperature [see Fig. 1(e)].

FIG. 1. (a) Experimental method for producing and detecting
ultracold molecules. (i) Bose condensed atoms in an optical
dipole trap are exposed to a magnetic field just below a
Feshbach resonance. (ii) The field is quickly stepped throughthe resonance to minimize atom loss. (iii) The field is thenswept back through the resonance, creating an atom-molecule
mixture. (iv) Unpaired atoms are removed from the trap withresonant light, yielding a pure molecular sample. (v) The trap isswitched off, allowing the molecules to expand ballistically.
(vi) Finally, the magnetic field is swept back across the resonance to reconvert the molecules to atoms for imaging (vii).
(b) Image of the atomic sample after ramping the field to
produce molecules; (c) after the resonant light pulse has removed all unpaired atoms; (d) after the molecules (105 ) havebeen reconverted to atoms. (b),(c) were taken along the weakaxis of the trap after 17 ms ballistic (time-of-flight –TOF)
expansion. (e) An image showing both atomic (top) and molecular (bottom) clouds after 14 ms ballistic expansion, spatially separated by a magnetic field gradient. With 4 ms fieldramp-down time, some molecules survived even without theblast pulse, but are much more heated. The field of view of each
image is 1:8 mm  1:3 mm.

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The blast pulse was applied along the radial axis of thetrap to minimize collisions between the escaping atoms
and the molecules at rest. A 20 s pulse of resonant lightremoved all atoms from the optical trap, leaving behind apure molecular sample (see Fig. 1). At only 4 G below the
Feshbach resonance, the light was still close to resonancewith molecular photodissociation to low-velocity atoms,
but the overlap matrix element was sufficiently diminished to leave the molecules unaffected. After a variable
hold time, the optical trap was switched off and themolecules expanded ballistically for between 4 and20 ms. The molecules were detected by converting themback to atoms with field ramp-up in up  100 s at theend of expansion. Varying up between 50 s and 4 ms did
not affect the recovered atom number, though shorter
up ’s recovered atoms with larger kinetic energy [23].
Thus we assume all molecules are converted back to
atoms. A resonant absorption image was taken after an
additional 500 s, which allowed the imaging field tosettle. The rapid conversion of molecules to atoms after
a long expansion time ensured that the absorption images
accurately depicted the momentum distribution of themolecular cloud.
Atoms and molecules were separated during the ballistic expansion by a Stern-Gerlach technique [Fig. 1(e)].
Because of trap imperfections, the large bias coils provided an additional radial gradient of the axial field of
2:8 G=cm in the vicinity of the condensate. This value
was determined from the trajectory of the falling atoms.
Since the molecules have a different magnetic moment,
they separate from the atoms during the ballistic expansion [Fig. 1(e)]. From the separation of the atomic andmolecular clouds at different times, we determined thedifference between atomic and molecular magnetic moments to be 3:2 B (B is the Bohr magneton), in good
agreement with theory [11].
For different ramp down times down , the time-of-flightimages of the molecular cloud exhibit drastically different momentum distribution. The coldest cloud was obtained with the fastest ramp down time possible,
down  50 s (Fig. 2). A Gaussian fit was used to determine the molecular temperature Tm and the phase-spacedensity. Because of the rapid ramp down, the molecules
had no time to adjust to the external trapping potential or
any mean-field interactions. Therefore, we assume themolecules were uniformly created with the ThomasFermi profile of the original atomic BEC. The peakphase-space density is then given by3hN
P SDpeak  p 8 m2 ;(1)
2 kB Tm Mm 15 Rr Rz

where h is the Planck constant, kB is the Boltzmann
constant, Mm is the molecular mass, and Nm is the numberof molecules. The second factor in the equation is thepeak density for a Thomas-Fermi profile.
Figure 3(a) shows the phase-space densities obtainedfor different holding time in the optical trap. Phase-space
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FIG. 2. Ballistic expansion of a pure molecular sample.
Absorption images of molecular clouds (after reconversion
to atoms) are shown for increasing expansion time afterswitching off the optical trap. The small expansion velocity corresponds to a temperature of 30 nK, characteristicof high phase-space density. The images are taken along the
weak axis of the trap. The field of view of each image is
3:0 mm  0:7 mm.

densities in excess of 20 were observed, much larger
than the critical value of 2.6. This demonstrates that aquantum-degenerate cloud of atoms can be transformed
into a quantum-degenerate molecular gas.
The high initial phase-space density decayed rapidly(2 ms), due to molecule loss and heating. For a puremolecular sample at a peak density of 4  1012 cm3 , themolecule number dropped by half in 5 ms and the apparent temperature doubled in 2 ms. Since the molecules areformed in a high vibrational state with quantum numberv  14, losses are most likely due to vibrational relaxation. The high loss rate of the molecules is consistent withtheoretically predicted two-body relaxation rate coefficients of 1010 cm3 =s [9,24]. Because the loss of molecules is faster at the high densities near the bottom of thetrap, it is accompanied by heating. This is in contrast toevaporative cooling, where the losses occur at the top of
the trap. Such antievaporative heating gives a time con-

FIG. 3. Molecular phase-space density versus hold time.
(a) The phase-space densities of the trapped molecules wereobserved to decrease significantly after a few milliseconds inthe optical trap. The open and solid squares are data from two
separate runs on different days. (b),(c) are absorption imagesof the molecular clouds after (b) 0 ms, (c) 2 ms, (d) 5 ms,(e) 10 ms, (f) 20 ms hold time in the trap. The field of view is
0:8 mm  0:8 mm.

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stant 4 times slower than the observed heating rate. We
therefore believe that the rapid increase in the apparent
temperature is due to the inward motion of the molecular
cloud (see below), and possibly transfer of the vibrationalenergy of the molecules.
Our calculation of the phase-space density is conservative, since almost all errors lead to an underestimation of
the value. The
most critical quantity is the thermal velocp
ity vtherm  2kB Tm =Mm obtained from the Gaussian fitof the cloud, since the phase-space density scales with thethird power of vtherm . We determined the velocity bysimply dividing the size of the cloud by the time-offlight, without correcting for imaging resolution andinitial cloud size.
Correcting for the imaging resolution of 10 m compared to the typical cloud size of 50 m would increase
the phase-space density measurement by 6%. In addition,
radial excitation of the trapped cloud (shown in Fig. 4)
contributed to the size of the cloud after the ballistic
expansion. From the fits, the smaller of the two Gaussian radii was used to calculate vtherm , assuming that thelarger size was caused by radial excitations. Yet since theradial excitation can occur in two orthogonal directions,
we estimate that the extracted thermal velocities werestill overestimated by 10%. We also considered magnetic focusing of the cloud due to residual field inhomogeneities. Because we use large coils (17 cm in diameterand 4 cm away from the condensate) to produce ahomogeneous magnetic field, any residual radial curvature due to radial fields is calculated to be & 0:1 G=cm2 .
An upper bound for the radial curvature of the axial fields
was obtained from trap frequency measurements andballistic expansion measurements as <1 G=cm2 . Thiscan only reduce the size of the cloud by less than 2%
after a typical ballistic expansion time of 17 ms.
We assume resonant absorption in determining thenumber of atoms. Any systematic effect such as small
detuning or saturation, would lower both Nm and theThomas-Fermi volume (proportional to N 3=5 , where N
is the number of condensed atoms). The net effect is anunderestimate of the phase-space density. In addition,
because the molecular formation process is nonlinear in

FIG. 4. Images of (a) atomic and (b) molecular clouds. Theseabsorption images were taken after 7 ms ballistic expansion and show the axial extent of the clouds. Radial excitations in the optical trap resulting from the sudden switchingof magnetic fields are manifest as snakelike patterns. Such
excitations blur images (c) taken along the long axis of thetrap (in 17 ms TOF), leading to an underestimate of the phasespace density. The fields of view are (a),(b) 0:6 mm  3:2 mm,(c) 0:6 mm  0:4 mm.

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atomic density, the assumption of the atomic ThomasFermi volume for molecules is likely an overestimate.
Furthermore, in the absence of strong mean-field repulsion (due to the much lower molecular density), themolecular cloud would not sustain the initial size ofthe atomic condensate [used in Eq. (1)], and shrink toa smaller size within a few milliseconds ( radial trap
period). If we assume radial thermal equilibrium while
keeping the axial length fixed (as the axial trap period
is 500 ms), the phase-space density would be 2 to 4
times higher than is shown in Fig. 3. To sum up, the extracted peak phase-space densities are underestimated by* 30%, and all other critical systematic effects would
raise the value even further.
When a molecular cloud with high phase-space density
equilibrates by elastic collisions, it should form a condensate. There is no prediction for the scattering length ofthe molecules, which are formed in the jv  14; l  0i
state [25]. Assuming a prototypical scattering length of
100a0 (a0 is the Bohr radius), we estimate the elastic
collision rate between molecules to be 6 s1 , which issmaller than our loss rate. Thus, the so-called ratio of
good and bad collisions is smaller than 1.
Recent work on molecules composed of fermionic lithium [14,15] and potassium [26] atoms showed a dramaticincrease in lifetime close to the Feshbach resonance.
Theoretically, the rate of vibrational relaxation should
decrease with the scattering length as as / a2:55
due tosPauli blocking [19]. In contrast, for molecules composedof bosonic atoms, the rate should increase proportionallyto as [27]. On the other hand, the elastic collision rate is
proportional to a2s , so for large as one would expect theratio of good-to-bad collisions to exceed one. However, if
this condition is met at loss rates faster than the trap
frequency, the cloud can only establish local, not global
equilibrium.
Whether our molecular sample is a condensate depends
on one’s definition of BEC. If phase-space density in excess of 2.6 (corresponding to a diagonal matrix element of
the single-particle density matrix larger than 1) is sufficient, then one may regard a short-lived atom-moleculesuperposition state [12] as a molecular BEC. However,following this definition, a small excited state admixture
in an optically trapped BEC would qualify as BEC ofelectronically excited atoms. If one asks for the additional
requirement of a pure molecular sample, we haveachieved that in this work. Another definition would require phase coherence, which could again be observed
even in short-lived samples. Should one also require alifetime of the degenerate sample exceeding the collisiontime (to achieve local equilibrium), the trap period (toachieve global equilibrium), or the inverse mean-fieldenergy (the typical dynamic timescale)? In our opinion,
BEC requires thermal equilibrium. High phase-spacedensity is necessary, but not sufficient.
In conclusion, we have created a quantum-degenerate
gas of 105 cold sodium molecules with a phase-space
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density >20. This was achieved with a fast magnetic
field sweep through a Feshbach resonance, followed byquick removal of the remnant atoms with resonant light.
This purification was necessary to avoid heating anddecay of the molecules through inelastic collision processes. These processes could also be avoided by loading
the atomic BEC into an optical lattice in the Mottinsulator phase with a filling factor of 2 [28,29] which,after sweeping the magnetic field through the Feshbachresonance, would result in a long-lived sample of isolated
molecules.
The authors would like to acknowledge M. Xue forexperimental assistance with the project. We also thankA. E. Leanhardt and M.W. Zwierlein for their criticalreading of the manuscript. This research is supported by
NSF, ONR, ARO, NASA, and the David and Lucile
Packard Foundation.

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Appendix D
Dissociation and Decay of
Ultracold Sodium Molecules
This appendix reprints Ref. [177]: T. Mukaiyama, J.R. Abo-Shaeer, K. Xu, J.K. Chin,
and W. Ketterle, Dissociation and Decay of Ultracold Sodium Molecules, Phys. Rev.
Lett. 91, 210402 (2003).

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PHYSICA L R EVIEW LET T ERS

Dissociation and Decay of Ultracold Sodium Molecules
T. Mukaiyama, J. R. Abo-Shaeer, K. Xu, J. K. Chin, and W. Ketterle
Department of Physics, MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms,
and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA(Received 24 November 2003; published 4 May 2004)
The dissociation of ultracold molecules was studied by ramping an external magnetic field through a
Feshbach resonance. The observed dissociation energies directly yielded the strength of the atommolecule coupling. They showed nonlinear dependence on the ramp speed. This was explained by aWigner threshold law which predicts that the decay rate of the molecules above threshold increases
with the density of states. In addition, inelastic molecule-molecule and molecule-atom collisions werecharacterized.
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.92.180402

PACS numbers: 03.75.Nt, 32.80.Pj, 33.80.Ps, 34.20.Cf

Recently, it has become possible to create ultracold
molecular gases from precooled atomic samples [1–11].
Extending the ultralow temperature regime from atoms tomolecules is an important step towards controlling the
motion of more complicated objects. The complex structure of molecules may lead to new scientific opportunities,
including the search for a permanent electric dipole moment, with sensitivity much higher than for heavy atoms[12], and the realization of quantum fluids of bosons andfermions with anisotropic interactions [13]. Furthermore,stable mixtures of atomic and molecular condensates are
predicted to show coherent stimulation of atom-molecule
or molecule-atom conversion, constituting quantumcoherent chemistry [14].
To date, all realizations of ultracold molecules( < 1 mK) have bypassed the need for direct cooling of
the molecules, which is difficult due to the complicatedrovibrational structure. Rather, molecules were formed
from ultracold atoms using Feshbach resonances [2–11],
where a highly vibrational excited molecular stateis magnetically tuned into resonance with a pair of colliding atoms.
In this Letter, we study the dissociation and decay ofsuch highly excited molecules. Figure 1 shows a schematic of the dissociation process. For magnetic fields
above the Feshbach resonance, the molecular state crosses
the free atomic states, shown here as discrete states in a
finite quantization volume. The interaction between
atoms and molecules turns these crossing into anticrossings. When the magnetic field is swept very slowly
through the resonance, the molecules follow the adiabatic
curve and end up in the lowest energy state of the atoms.
For faster ramps, the molecular populations will partiallycross some of the low-lying states, and the dissociation
products will populate several atomic states. The stronger
the coupling between the molecular state and the atomic
states, the faster the molecules dissociate and the smaller
the energy release in the dissociation. Observing theatom-molecule coupling in one-body decay (dissociation)
is a new method to experimentally determine the strengthof a Feshbach resonance. Previous measurements
used two- or three-body processes to characterize the
Feshbach resonance and therefore required accurate
knowledge of the atomic density distribution.
Collisional properties of the molecules were alsostudied. Inelastic collisions limit both the production ofmolecules and their lifetime. We observed loss of molecules by collisions both with atoms and other molecules.
These two processes were studied by separating atoms
and molecules with a short pulse of laser light [9].
To generate molecules, sodium condensates in the
jF; mF i  j1; 1i state were prepared in an optical dipole
trap. The trap frequencies of 290 Hz in the radial directionand 2.2 Hz in the axial direction yielded typical densitiesof 1:7  1014 cm3 for 5  106 atoms. Atoms were thenspin-flipped using an adiabatic radio frequency sweep tothe j1; 1i state, where a 1 G wide Feshbach resonanceexists at 907 G [15].

180402-1

 2004 The American Physical Society

0031-9007=04=92(18)=180402(4)$22.50

a<0Energy

a>0

δE

atoms

molecule
B0

Magnetic Field

FIG. 1. Schematic diagram of energy levels for molecules andatoms. The diabatic energy levels are shown as dashed lines.
The adiabatic curves (solid lines) include the atom-molecule
coupling. When the magnetic field is swept from positive tonegative scattering length, dissociated molecules end up in one
or several atomic states, depending on the ramp rate of themagnetic field. The spheres represent the distribution of the
population before and after the ramp.

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VOLUME 92, N UMBER 18

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PHYSICA L R EVIEW LET T ERS

The magnetic field sequence used to create and detect
Na2 molecules was identical to our previous work [9].
Briefly, the axial magnetic field was ramped to 903 G in
100 ms using two pairs of bias coils. In order to prepare
the condensate on the negative scattering length side of
the resonance, the field was stepped up to 913 G as quickly
as possible (  1 s) to jump through the resonance withminimal atom loss. The field was then ramped back down
to 903 G in 50 s to form molecules. In order to remove
nonpaired atoms from the trap, the sample was irradiatedwith a 20 s pulse of resonant light. Because 903 G is far
from the Feshbach resonance, the mixing between atomic
and molecular states was small and therefore molecules
were transparent to this ‘‘blast’’ pulse. By ramping thefield back to 913 G molecules were converted back to
atoms. Absorption images were taken at high fields (either
at 903 or 913 G) after 10 to 17 ms ballistic expansion, with
the imaging light incident along the axial direction of thecondensate.
To study the momentum distribution of the backconverted atoms, the magnetic field was ramped up immediately after turning off the optical trap, or for areference, at the end of the ballistic expansion. The difference between the energies of ballistic expansion is thereleased dissociation energy. Energies were obtained
from the rms width of the cloud hx2 i as E 
3mhx2 i=2t2 , where t is the ballistic expansion time andm is the atomic mass. Figure 2 shows that faster fieldramps created hotter atoms.
An earlier theoretical treatment assumes a constantpredissociation lifetime of the molecules and predicts a
linear relation between dissociation energy and field ramp
rate [16]. This theory predicts a much faster dissociation(and therefore smaller dissociation energy) than was observed. Furthermore, our data show a nonlinear dependence. Linear behavior would be expected if the lifetimeof the molecules was independent of the energy fromthe dissociation threshold. The fact that the slope be-comes smaller for increasing ramp rate indicates thatthe lifetime of molecules decreases with the ramp rate.
As we show, this can be explained by pan increase of thedensity of atomic states, leading to adependence ofthe molecular decay rate (Wigner threshold law [17]).
The decay rate follows from Fermi’s golden ruleas h
 2 jVma j2 D [18], where Vma is the matrix
element between atomic and molecular states, which toleading order is independent of . The density of states
D is given by 3=2
V
m
1=2
D 
;
(1)
2
2
h 2
where V is the quantization volume for free atomic states.
An expression for the matrix element Vma is obtainedby comparing the energy shift near a Feshbach resonancewith second-order perturbation theory. Assuming two
atoms in a volume V, the energy shift of the low-lying
continuum states due to the coupling with a bound molecular state is

jVma j2



jVma j2;
 B  B0(2)

where  is the difference between atomic and molecular magnetic moments, B is the applied magnetic field,
and B0 is the position of the Feshbach resonance.
The energy shift can also be expressed in terms of themean field energy 4 h 2 a=mV, where a  abg B= B 
B0 is the scattering length near the Feshbach resonance(abg is the background scattering length and B is theresonance width [19]):

4 h 2 abg B:
mV B  B0(3)

Comparing Eqs. (2) and (3) yields
jVma j2 

4 h 2a B:mV bg(4)

If the entire population is initially in the molecularstate, the fraction of molecules, m , at energy follows
the rate equation,
 1
 1
dm
d
d
dm

 m
(5)
dt
dt
dt
d


FIG. 2. Dissociation energy of molecules as a function ofmagnetic field ramp rate. The dashed line represents the linear
relation described in Ref. [16], the solid line shows the result ofour model using a theoretical value for B  0:98 G and abg 
3:4 nm, and the dotted line shows a curve with the productabg B as a fitting parameter.

180402-2

2 jVma j2 D
hj

B_ j

m

:

(6)

Using Eqs. (1) and (4), we solve the differential equation for m ,s
ma2bg
2B
3=2
m  e 2=3 C ;
C
:
(7)
h 2
h B_
In the laboratory frame, the atoms have kinetic energy=2, and therefore the average energy of an atom after
dissociation is180402-2

VOLUME 92, N UMBER 18
E 

Z1
0

2

dm

PHYSICA L R EVIEW LET T ERS

10v
u 2
_ 2=3
u h
h

B
A : (8)
 0:591@t 2
mabg 2B

Using theoretical values abg  3:4 nm, =h 
3:65  1:4 MHz=G, and B  0:98 G [20,21], the data
show good agreement with our model. A fit of the productabg B to our data results in abg B  3:64 G nm  2%
(dotted line in Fig. 2). The discrepancy between thetheoretical and fitted values is 4 times bigger than thestatistical error, but within the systematic error of themeasurement of the release energy.
Further experiments with ultracold sodium molecules
will critically depend on their collision properties.
Therefore we also studied heating and inelastic collision
processes. As shown in Fig. 3, we observed monotonic
heating of the pure molecular sample over 30 ms. In
addition, we observed short time scale oscillations (6 ms)
in the fitted temperature (inset of Fig. 3). Such breathing
oscillations were excited because the molecules wereformed over the volume of the atomic condensate andstarted oscillations around their equilibrium volume. The
equilibrium volume deduced from the observed released
energy is much smaller than the initial volume. The
absence of damping implies a collision time of at least
6 ms, or a molecular scattering length smaller than 17 nm(obtained using the expression for the collision rate
8 a2 vth nm , where vth is the thermal velocity). It is unclear whether the oscillation disappeared due to collisions or limited signal-to-noise ratio.
The temperature of the molecular cloud saturated at
250 nK after 15 ms. A possible explanation is thebalance between heating due to inelastic molecular decay
and the evaporative cooling caused by the finite trap depth(1:7 K). This would imply a collision time of 15 ms.
However, we have no clear evidence that thermalization
has occurred. Clearly, further studies of elastic collisions
between ultracold molecules are necessary.

FIG. 3. Temperature of the molecular cloud. After 15 ms, thetemperature saturates at 250 nK. Error bars represent thestatistical error (standard deviation). The inset shows finer
resolution data for holding times up to 6 ms. The solid line isa guide to the eye.

180402-3

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Molecules formed via an s-wave Feshbach resonanceare created in the rotational ground state, but in highvibrational states. Therefore, one expects vibrational relaxation to be a strong, inelastic decay mechanism.
Figure 4(a) shows the decay of a pure molecularsample. The decay was analyzed with the rate equation
N_ m Kmm nm :Nm

(9)Here Nm ; nm is the number and the density of themolecules, respectively, and Kmm is the moleculemolecule collision rate coefficient. Because of the changing size and temperature of the molecular cloud during
the first 15 ms (Fig. 3), we fit data points only atlater times, assuming a thermal equilibrium volume forthe molecules. The decay at earlier times is slower, consistent with a larger molecular cloud. The fit yields amolecule-molecule collision coefficient of Kmm  5:1 
1011 cm3 =s, about 2 orders of magnitude larger than the
typical values reported for fermions [4,5].
Inelastic collisions between molecules and atoms werealso observed by keeping atoms in the trap [Fig. 4(b)].
The decay was analyzed assuming that the loss of

FIG. 4. Decay of ultracold molecules trapped alone (a) or
together with atoms (b). The solid lines in (a) and (b) are fits ofEqs. (9) and (10) to data, which assume vibrational relaxationin the collision of m olecules (a) or collisions between molecules and atoms (b). The insets illustrate the experimental
sequences.

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PHYSICA L R EVIEW LET T ERSVOLUME 92, N UMBER 18

(a)

(b)

50 ms

(c)

Molecule Number

150x10200 ms

1 ms

4 ms

3

100
50
0
5

6 7 8 9

100

2

3

4

5

6 7 8 9Ramp Time (µs)

2

3

4

1000

FIG. 5. Conversion of atoms to molecules for various ramp
times. During a given time, the magnetic field was swept by
10 G. (a) and (b) show absorption images taken after 14 ms timeof flight. The molecules (bottom) were radially separated fromthe atoms (top) by a field gradient of 2:8 G=cm. The molecules
were converted back to atoms only 0.5 ms before imaging by
ramping the magnetic field back across the Feshbach resonance.
This time was chosen to be long enough for any transient field
fluctuations to damp out, but short enough such that the size ofthe imaged cloud reflected the molecular temperature, not the
dissociation energy. (a) The atoms remained in the trap. (b) The
atoms were removed by a resonant laser pulse immediately
after the magnetic field ramp. (c) Number of molecules as afunction of ramp time for (a) (open circles) and (b) (closed
circles).

molecules occurred mainly due to collisions with atoms,
resulting in an exponential decay:
N_ m Kam na :
Nm

(10)

Here na is the density of atoms, and Kam is the atommolecule collision rate coefficient. From the fit, we extract a lifetime of 106 s and a rate coefficient Kam 
5:5  1011 cm3 =s, which agrees well with theoreticalpredictions [21,22].
The inelastic losses determine the maximum conversion efficiency from atoms to molecules. For an adiabatic
ramp, one expects close to 100% conversion efficiency.
Indeed, in experiments with fermionic atoms, efficiencies
up to 85% have been observed [5]. Figure 5 shows theresults for magnetic field ramps of different durations.
The two sets of images show that applying the blast pulse
dramatically improved the molecular number and temperature. Without it, a slower ramp time (4 ms) appeared
to be more favorable for molecule formation [open circles
180402-4

week ending
7 MAY 2004

in Fig. 5(c)]. No molecules were observed for a 50 sramp time. However, with the blast pulse, a similar number of molecules was obtained for all ramp times between
50 s to 4 ms [closed circles in Fig. 5(c)].
We assume that these results reflect the interplay of twocompeting processes. The adiabatic condition requires a
relatively slow field ramp for efficient conversion.
However, this means that the atoms and molecules spend
more time near or at the Feshbach resonance, whereinelastic collision rates are enhanced. In contrast to
Fig. 5(b), the absence of a molecular signal in Fig. 5(a)for 50 s ramp time reflects that the atomic density
reduction due to the ballistic expansion is too slow for
the molecules to survive the inelastic collisions withthe atoms.
In conclusion, we observed a Wigner threshold behavior in the dissociation of ultracold molecules. We wereable to characterize a Feshbach resonance using a onebody decay (dissociation) process. The rapid decay of themolecules due to collisions with atoms and other molecules imposes a severe limit to further evaporative cooling for bosons. This also explains the low conversion
efficiency (  4%), in contrast to recent experimentswith fermions.
The authors thank D. E. Miller for experimental assistance and A. E. Leanhardt, M. Saba, and D. Schneble for
their critical reading of the manuscript. We also thank P. S.
Julienne, B. J. Verhaar, and V. A. Yurovsky for useful discussion. This research is supported by NSF, ONR, ARO,
and NASA.

[1] R. Wynar et al., Science 287, 1016 (2000).
[2] E. A. Donley et al., Nature (London) 417, 529 (2002).
[3] C. A. Regal et al., Nature (London) 424, 47 (2003).
[4] S. Jochim et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 240402 (2003).
[5] J. Cubizolles et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 240401 (2003).
[6] K. E. Strecker et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 080406 (2003).
[7] S. Dürr et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 020406 (2003).
[8] C. Chin et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 033201 (2003).
[9] K. Xu et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 210402 (2003).
[10] M. Greiner et al., Nature (London) 426, 537 (2003).
[11] S. Jochim et al., Science 302, 2101 (2003).
[12] J. J. Hudson et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 23003 (2002).
[13] M. Baranov et al., Phys. Scr. T102, 74 (2002).
[14] D. J. Heinzen et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 5029 (2000).
[15] S. Inouye et al., Nature (London) 392, 151 (1998).
[16] F. A. van Abeelen and B. J. Verhaar, Phys. Rev. Lett. 83,
1550 (1999).
[17] E. P. Wigner, Phys. Rev. 73, 1002 (1948).
[18] F. H. Mies et al., Phys. Rev. A 61, 022721 (2000).
[19] E. Timmermans et al., Phys. Rep. 315, 199 (1999).
[20] V. A. Yurovsky et al., Phys. Rev. A 60, R765 (1999).
[21] V. A. Yurovsky et al., Phys. Rev. A 62, 043605 (2000).
[22] V. A. Yurovsky and A. Ben-Reuven, Phys. Rev. A 67,
043611 (2003).

180402-4

Appendix E
Sodium Bose-Einstein Condensatesin an Optical LatticeThis appendix reprints Ref. [139]: K. Xu, Y. Liu, J.R. Abo-Shaeer, T. Mukaiyama,
J.K. Chin, D.E. Miller, and W. Ketterle, Sodium Bose-Einstein condensates in an
optical lattice, Phys. Rev. A 72, 043604 (2005).

138

PHYSICAL REVIEW A 72, 043604 共2005兲

Sodium Bose-Einstein condensates in an optical lattice
K. Xu,* Y. Liu, J. R. Abo-Shaeer, T. Mukaiyama, J. K. Chin, D. E. Miller, and W. Ketterle†
Department of Physics, MIT–Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms, and Research Laboratory of Electronics, MIT, Cambridge,
Massachusetts 02139, USA

Kevin M. Jones
Department of Physics, Williams College, 33 Lab Campus Dr., Williamstown, Massachusetts 01267, USA

Eite Tiesinga
Atomic Physics Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology, 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8424, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899,
USA
共Received 12 July 2005; published 10 October 2005兲
The phase transition from a superfluid to a Mott insulator has been observed in a 23Na Bose-Einsteincondensate. A dye laser detuned ⬇5 nm red of the Na 3 2S → 3 2 P1/2 transition was used to form the threedimensional optical lattice. The heating effects of the small detuning as well as the three-body decay processes
constrained the time scale of the experiment. Certain lattice detunings were found to induce a large loss of
atoms. These loss features were shown to be due to photoassociation of atoms to vibrational levels in the
Na2 共1兲 3⌺+g state.
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.72.043604

PACS number共s兲: 03.75.Lm, 73.43.Nq, 33.20.Kf, 34.20.Cf

I. INTRODUCTION

Optical lattices have become a powerful tool to enhancethe effects of the interaction in ultracold atomic systems tocreate strong correlations and probe many-body physics beyond the mean-field theory 关1–7兴. Simply through varying
the depth of the lattice potential, one changes the tunnelingrate as well as the on-site interaction energy by changing theconfinement of the atoms. The strength of the atomic interaction can be directly tuned with a magnetic Feshbach resonance 关8兴. In comparison to 87Rb, which has been used inalmost all experiments on optical lattices, 23Na has stronger
and wider Feshbach resonances that are experimentally accessible 关9,10兴. One such resonance has been used to produce quantum degenerate Na2 molecules 关11兴. Therefore, asodium condensate loaded into an optical lattice would be arich and flexible system for studying strong correlations.
So far, most optical lattice experiments have been performed with relatively heavy atomic species 共e.g., rubidium
and potassium兲 for which the recoil frequencies are lower
and lasers are readily available to achieve trap depths ofseveral tens of recoil frequencies at a few tens of milliwatts.
For 23Na, high-power single-mode lasers are necessary forsimilar experiments. In this work, we chose to use a dye laser
red-detuned by ⬇5 nm from the D lines of sodium 共589 nm兲.
The spontaneous scattering rate limited the time window ofthe experiment to less than 50 ms, but was still sufficient tosatisfy the adiabaticity condition to explore the quantum
phase transition from a superfluid to a Mott insulator. We
also observed strong atom losses at various lattice laser detunings, which were interpreted as photoassociation transi-*Electronic mail: kwxu@mit.edu†

Website: cua.mit.edu/ketterleគgroup1050-2947/2005/72共4兲/043604共6兲/$23.00

tions. The particular molecular states responsible for thesetransitions were identified through theoretical calculations
and previous experimental data.
II. EXPERIMENT SETUP
23

A Na Bose-Einstein condensate containing up to 106
atoms in the 兩F = 1 , mF = −1典 state was first produced ina magnetic trap and subsequently loaded into a crossed
optical dipole trap. The optical trap was derived from asingle-mode 1064 nm infrared laser, with the horizontal
and vertical beams detuned by 60 MHz throughacousto-optic modulators. The number of condensed
atoms was varied through three-body decay in a tight trap
共␻x,y,z = 2␲ ⫻ 200, 328, 260 Hz兲, after which the trap was decompressed 共␻x,y,z = 2␲ ⫻ 110, 155, 110 Hz兲 to allow further
evaporation and rethermalization. A vertical magnetic field
gradient was applied to compensate for gravity and avoid
sagging in the weaker trap.
A dye laser operated at 594.710 nm was used to set up athree-dimensional optical lattice. The three beams were focused to a 1 / e2 waist of ⬃82 ␮m at the condensate, andretroreflected to form standing waves. The two horizontal
beams were orthogonal to each other, while the third beam
was slanted at ⬃20° with respect to the vertical axis due tolimited optical access. The three beams were frequency
shifted by ±30 and 80 MHz to eliminate cross-interference
between different beams.
The Gaussian profile of the lattice beams added an additional harmonic trapping potential, while the localization of
atoms at the lattice sites increased the repulsive mean fieldinteraction. At the maximum lattice depth, the trap frequencies due to the combined potentials of the optical dipole trap
and the lattice beams were ⬃510 Hz for all three dimensions. The trap parameters were chosen such that during the043604-1©2005 The American Physical Society

PHYSICAL REVIEW A 72, 043604 共2005兲

XU et al.

ramping of the optical lattice potential, the overall size of thecloud 共parametrized by Thomas-Fermi radii兲 remained approximately constant in order to minimize intraband excitations 共the mean Thomas-Fermi radius is ⬃14 ␮m for 106
atoms兲. The peak per-lattice-site occupancy numbers
achieved in our experiment were between 3 to 5.

III. QUANTUM PHASE TRANSITION

Atoms held in a shallow optical lattice can tunnel freely
from site to site and form a superfluid phase. As the lattice ismade deeper, the atomic interaction is increased while thetunneling rate between lattice sites is exponentially suppressed. The system then undergoes a phase transition to an
insulating phase—the Mott-insulator—in which each latticesite contains a definite fixed number of atoms. According to
the mean-field theory for the homogenous systems of atoms
in the lowest band of an optical lattice, the critical point forthe phase transition from a superfluid to a Mott-insulator
state with n atoms per lattice site is determined by 关12–14兴
U = z关2n + 1 + 2冑n共n + 1兲兴J,

共1兲

where
2

U=

4␲ប asm冕

d3x兩w共x兲兩4

共2兲

is the on-site interaction energy;
J=

冕

冉

d3x w*共x − ␭latt/2兲 −冊

ប2 2
ⵜ + Vlatt共x兲 w共x兲2m

共3兲is the tunneling rate between adjacent lattice sites; z is thenumber of nearest neighbors in the lattice 共six for a cubic
lattice兲; m is the atomic mass; as is the s-wave scattering
length 共2.75 nm for 23Na兲; w共x兲 is the Wannier function; ␭lattis the lattice wavelength; Vlatt共x兲 is the lattice potential.
Figure 1 shows U and Jn = z关2n + 1 + 2冑n共n + 1兲兴 J for a
cubic lattice as a function of the lattice depth, obtained
through a band-structure calculation. All energies are ex2/ 2m, wherepressed in units of the recoil energy Erecoil = ប2klatt
klatt = 2␲ / ␭latt is the lattice wave number. With this scaling J
is independent of ␭latt. The peak occupancy number in our
experiment was ⱗ5. From Fig. 1, we find that the the criticalpoints are at a lattice depth of 14.2, 16.2, 17.6, 18.7, and 19.5
共all in units of Erecoil兲 for n = 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 respectively.
The inset of Fig. 1 shows that the ratio of U / J increases
rapidly with an increasing lattice depth.
When a weak harmonic trap is present in addition to thelattice potential, as is the case for the experiment, the atomic
density is not uniform. Nevertheless, Eqs. 共1兲–共3兲 can beused to estimate the lattice depth needed to observe the Mottinsulator phase transition at any point in the harmonic trap.
Given the local density of the initial condensate, a local
value of n can be estimated, and thus the local critical lattice
depth can be read off from Fig. 1. Since the critical depth
increases with n, one expects that as the lattice depth is increased, shells of different occupancies will undergo the transition to the Mott-insulator phase, starting from the edge ofFIG. 1. A determination of the phase transition points: Thephase transition at occupancy number n occurs when Jn= z关2n + 1 + 2冑n共n + 1兲兴J as given by Eq. 共1兲 equals U. The horizontal location of the crossing point where Jn = U gives the criticallattice depth. The inset shows the ratio of U over J as a function of
the lattice depth.

the density profile and moving in toward the center.
In our experiment, the optical lattice was linearly ramped
up to a maximum potential of 20 Erecoil in a variable time
␶ramp 共Erecoil = h24.4 kHz for our system兲. The lattice depth
was calibrated by probing the energy difference between thefirst and the third band at zero quasimomentum with smallamplitude modulation of the lattice beams 共see, e.g., 关6兴兲.
After reaching the peak value, the lattice was ramped backdown again in ␶ramp. The ramp sequence was stopped at different times when both the trap and the lattice were suddenly
switched off 共in ⱗ1 ␮s兲. Absorption images were then taken
after some time of flight, as shown in Fig. 2. The disappearance of the interference pattern as the lattice depth was increased indicated the loss of phase coherence and a transition
from the superfluid state to the Mott insulator state 关3兴. The
subsequent revival of the interference patterns as the lattice
depth was reduced ensured that the system remained essentially in the ground state during the ramping process. Different ␶ramp’s were used to check the adiabaticity condition. The
peak spontaneous light scattering rate was about 21 s−1 at the
maximum intensity. Therefore for ␶ramp 艋 10 ms, less than
20% of the atoms spontaneously scattered a photon.
After the lattice was fully ramped down, most of the atoms 共⬎80% 兲 remained in the condensed fraction while therest were heated and distributed across the first Brillouinzone. Based on the number of atoms that remained in thecondensate after the lattice was fully ramped down, we conclude that ␶ramp ⲏ 1 ms satisfies the intraband adiabaticity
condition. In the following discussion, all measurements
were performed for ␶ramp = 1 , 5 , 10 ms, but only the data for␶ramp = 5 ms are shown as representative of similar results
unless otherwise noted 共see Fig. 3兲.
To characterize the lifetime of the Mott-insulator phase,
we held the lattice depth at the maximum level for various
amounts of time before ramping the lattice down to 8 Erecoil
共below the Mott-insulator transition point兲 and taking the043604-2

PHYSICAL REVIEW A 72, 043604 共2005兲

SODIUM BOSE-EINSTEIN CONDENSATES IN AN…

FIG. 2. 共a兲 Observation of the superfluid toMott insulator transition: The lattice depths forthe sequence of images are from left to right0, 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 16, 12, 8, 4, 0 Erecoil. The
time-of-flight is 7 ms and the field of view is1000 ␮m ⫻ 1200 ␮m. The peak occupancy number n is 5 for these images, and the phase transition should occur between 14 and 20 Erecoil according to the mean-field calculation. 共b兲 Timedependence of the lattice depth.

time-of-flight image. If the system remains in the groundstate, the contrast of the interference pattern should be recovered, whereas additional heating populates the Brillouin zone
and reduces the interference contrast. A cross section of thedensity profile was taken along the horizontal direction
showing the interference peaks on top of a broad background共see Fig. 3兲. The five interference peaks and the broad background were fit by six gaussians. The ratio between the total
integrated area of the peaks and the background was used as
the contrast to quantify the heating of the system. The contrast gives a more sensitive measure of the heating comparedto simply counting the recovered condensate atoms. As theatoms in the interference peaks quickly move apart, they are
not as broadened by the mean-field expansion as a single
condensate.
We performed the same measurement for two different
peak occupancy numbers n ⯝ 3 and 5. Figure 3 shows the
decay of the contrast and the lifetime ␶ was determined using
an exponential fit. The fitting error on the lifetime was lessthan 17%. The lifetime was about 50% longer for n = 3, implying that inelastic collision processes significantly contributed to the heating of the system. The three-body decay rate
at the maximum lattice potential for the peak on-site atomic
density 共⬃1016 cm−3 for n = 5兲 is about 100 s−1 关15兴, consistent with the observed lifetimes of ⬃10 ms. The peak densityof a condensate in a harmonic trap and therefore the peakoccupancy number scales with 2 / 5 power of the total number of atoms, and our method for varying the number ofatoms 共through three-body decay兲 was unable to consistently
produce low enough atom numbers for peak occupancy 艋2.
The signal-to-noise ratio of our current imaging system also
became marginal for such low atom numbers.

280 W / cm2 in each lattice beam. Due to the intentional frequency shifts between the three lattice beams, the effective
bandwidth of the lattice light as seen by the atoms is⬇100 MHz. For the narrow frequency scan range of Fig. 4,
the relative frequency scale was determined to better than
25 MHz using a Fabry-Perot cavity with a 2 GHz free spectral range.

IV. PHOTOASSOCIATION RESONANCES

FIG. 3. Lifetime of the Mott insulator state: The top row ofabsorption images were taken for hold times 0, 5, 10, 15, 20 ms.
The second row is the horizontal cross section of the atomic density
profile taken at the center of the absorption images. The decay of
the Mott insulator state is observed as the loss of contrast of theinterference peaks. The curves are the simple exponential fits used
to estimate the decay rate. The error bars in the graph are statisticalstandard deviation of multiple shots.

In this experiment, in addition to losses due to three-bodyrecombination, we observed large losses of atoms for certain
specific tunings of the lattice laser in the range
592 to 595 nm. A sample of such a loss feature is shown in
Fig. 4. For this measurement, the same ramp sequence wasused as before with ␶ramp = 1 ms. The peak intensity is about043604-3

PHYSICAL REVIEW A 72, 043604 共2005兲

XU et al.

FIG. 4. Photoassociation resonances: Atom loss from the opticallattice as a function of the lattice laser detuning. The top row ofimages shows the remaining atom cloud after the lattice was turned
off and the cloud expanded for 30 ms. The lower graph shows theremaining number of atoms for these and additional frequency
points. The zero of the x axis corresponds to a laser wavelength of
594.490 nm as determined with a wave meter with accuracy⬃1 GHz. The error bars are one standard deviation uncertainty. Theline is only a guide and does not have a theoretical underpinning.

Single-photon photoassociations proved to have caused
these losses. The lattice laser is tuned by ⬇160 cm−1 to thered of the atomic 3 2S → 3 3 P3/2 transition and thus is in a
spectral region where it might drive photoassociation transitions 关16–18兴 to rovibrational levels in molecular states dissociating to either the 3 2S + 3 2 P1/2 or 3 2S + 3 2 P3/2 limits.
Such a photoassociation transition, followed by the spontaneous radiative decay of the excited molecule into either abound ground electronic-state molecule or into “hot” atoms,
results in significant losses of atoms from the lattice. It istherefore important to identify the locations and strengths ofthese resonances and choose the appropriate lattice wavelength to avoid such losses.
There is an extensive body of knowledge on the photoassociation of ultracold alkali-metal atoms and the behavior of
the molecular potentials dissociating to the 3 2S + 3 2 P1/2 or
3 2S + 3 2 P3/2 limits 关16–18兴. Figure 5 shows the relevant excited molecular potentials as a function of internuclear separation R. The ground electronic states of Na2 are the X 1⌺+g
and a 3⌺+u states and two colliding ground state atoms will besome mixture of these symmetries. To the extent that theexcited states are well described as ⌺ or ⌸ states, the g ↔ u
and ⌬S = 0 selection rules imply that photoassociation transitions are allowed only to the two ⌺ states 关A 1⌺+u and
共1兲 3⌺+g 兴.
Previous experiments have identified the locations of thestrong transitions to the A 1⌺+u state 关19兴 and the weak transitions to the 共1兲 1⌸g共1g兲 state 关20兴. These are shown in Fig.
6. We looked for but failed to find any significant losses
attributable to the weak 共1兲 1⌸g共1g兲 state resonances. We

FIG. 5. Long-range molecular potentials near the Na2
3 2S + 3 2 P separated atom limit 共1 a0 = 0.0529 nm兲: The zero of thevertical scale is the 3 2S + 3 2 P3/2 limit; the 3 2S + 3 2 P1/2 limit lies
17.2 cm−1 lower. The hatched region indicates the energy range
explored in the experiment. The potentials are labeled by bothHund’s case 共a兲 state labels of the form 2S+1⌳±g/u and by Hund’s case
共c兲 labels ⍀±g/u given in parentheses after the case 共a兲 label. For
small R the curves labeled by a given case 共a兲 label become degenerate, while for larger R, as the effect of spin-orbit coupling becomes increasingly important, the degeneracy is lifted.

were able to confirm one of the A-state resonances, indicatedby the dot in Fig. 6. Since the primary goal of the present
work was to avoid photoassociation losses, we did not investigate known A-state locations further. Our search focused on
the strong resonances due to the 共1兲 1⌺+g state that had notbeen previously observed in this spectral region. In 0.5 GHz
steps, we scanned through a 30 GHz range around the theoretically predicted locations based on the model and auxiliary experimental data discussed below. In all but one suchscans, we were able to observe between 1 to 3 dips in theremaining atom numbers within a range of ⱗ15 GHz, including the loss feature shown in Fig. 4. As shown in Fig. 6
the agreement of the observed locations with the predictions
and auxiliary measurements confirms that these loss features
are due to photoassociation to the 共1兲 3⌺+g state. The locationsof the rovibrational levels of the b 3⌸u state are not known inthe current tuning range. Their spacing, however, should beequal to that of the 共1兲 1⌸g levels and our observations are
not consistent with such spacings.
The potential curves used in the calculation of the 共1兲 3⌺+gvibrational levels were generated from an extended versionof the model developed by Movre and Pichler for calculating
the combined effects of the 1 / R3 resonant dipole interaction
and the atomic spin-orbit interaction. Such models have been
extensively used to interpret photoassociation experiments
关16–18兴. To the long-range potentials generated by theMovre-Pichler-type calculation we append the results of abinitio calculations on the short-range molecular potentials 共in
the chemical bonding region兲. These short-range potentials
are not sufficiently accurate to allow predictions of absolute
vibrational positions. It is necessary to make slight adjust-043604-4

PHYSICAL REVIEW A 72, 043604 共2005兲

SODIUM BOSE-EINSTEIN CONDENSATES IN AN…

FIG. 6. A comparison of loss features 共pluses and dot兲 observedin a Bose condensate trapped in an optical lattice, to known molecular level positions: The x axis is the binding energy of themolecular level relative to the 3 2S共f = 2兲 + 3 2 P3/2共f = 3兲 atomic asymptote. If a loss feature, observed at a laser photon energy of
Ephoton, is due to the photoassociation of two 3 2S共f = 1兲 Na atoms toa bound molecular level, then the molecular level is bound by
E0 − Ephoton, where E0 / 共hc兲 = 16 973.4636 cm−1. The laser tunings ofobserved loss features are plotted in this way 共the pluses and thedot兲. The lines labeled 共1兲 1⌸g共1g兲 are binding energies of the J = 1
rotational levels of vibrational levels in this potential measured in amagneto-optical trap 共MOT兲 共关20兴 and unpublished work兲. The lines
labeled A 1⌺+u 共0+u 兲 are the energies reported in the RKR curve of关19兴 共nominally J = 0 positions兲 shifted to agree with the photoassociation measurement of 关21兴 corrected for rotation. The lines labeled 共1兲 3⌺+g are from an extended Movre-Pichler model calculation
calibrated to experimental data 共the crosses兲 from a two-color photoassociation experiment in a MOT. The lines displaced upward
共downward兲 are the 1g 共0−g 兲 component of the 共1兲 3⌺+g state. The
crosses indicate the three calibration points that lie in this spectral
range and are measurements of the J = 0 levels of the 0−g component.

For these levels, the J = 0 feature of the 0−g component
were found to be at 16 845.155, 16 852.585, and
168 908.201 cm−1, calibrated to iodine lines with an estimated uncertainty of about 0.004 cm−1 and are shown in Fig.
6. This new data on the 共1兲 3⌺+g was sufficient to calibrate our
extended Movre-Pichler model without any further adjustable parameters. The predicted positions shown in Fig. 6
agree well with those of the loss features observed in thelattice experiment, thus identifying the loss features as photoassociation transitions to levels in the 共1兲 3⌺+g state.
Based on this insight, we chose a wavelength of
594.710 nm for our lattice experiment 共corresponding to−158.5 cm−1 in Fig. 6兲. This tuning lies ⬎45 GHz from theclosest molecular resonance. Given the observed onresonance photoassociation rate of 1 ms−1 in the lattice, photoassociative decay can be ignored at such detunings as therate scales as the square of the ratio of the natural linewidth
to the detuning 关24兴.
V. CONCLUSIONSIn this paper, we explored the possibility of using a dyelaser detuned ⬇5 nm from the Na D lines to study manybody physics of a sodium BEC in an optical lattice, which
could allow for an independent control of interaction using
magnetic Feshbach resonances. The superfluid to Mottinsulator transition was observed in a Na Bose-Einstein condensate for the first time. The main technical difficulties are
due to the heating from the spontaneous light scattering andthree-body decay processes. In addition, several photoassociation resonances were observed and identified by means ofauxiliary spectroscopy measurements combined with theoretical modeling. These resonances were avoided by choosing
an appropriate lattice wavelength. In future experiments, weplan to use a high-power single-mode infrared laser at1064 nm to eliminate atomic light scattering 共Fig. 1 also
shows the transition points for a 1064 nm lattice兲. Moreover,heating from three-body recombination can be avoided byusing occupancy numbers less than three.

ments to these potentials to match experimentally measured
vibrational positions, which were obtained through a separate photoassociation spectroscopy experiment in a dark-spot
magneto-optical trap 共MOT兲 containing Na 3 2S共f = 1兲 atoms
at about 300 ␮m, using a two-color ionization scheme andan ion detector 关22,23兴. The photoassociation spectra takenin the MOT have higher resolution than the loss features in
the lattice experiment.
In the spectral region of interest for the lattice experiment,
three vibrational levels of the 共1兲 3⌺+g were identified by measurements in the MOT. The spectra show a 1g component
with a complicated hyperfine/rotational pattern, and, slightly
higher 共⬃0.3 cm−1兲 in energy, a 0−g component with a simpler nearly rotational pattern. This ordering of the 1g and 0g
components is in agreement with the Movre-Pichler model.

The authors would like to thank Fredrik Fatemi and Paul
Lett for their help in obtaining the MOT photoassociation
data used here, and Widagdo Setiawan for experimental assistance. We also thank Carl Williams for initiating the communications regarding the photoassociation resonances. This
research is supported by the NSF, ONR, ARO, and NASA.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

043604-5

PHYSICAL REVIEW A 72, 043604 共2005兲

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043604-6

Appendix F
Observation of Strong Quantum
Depletion in a Gaseous
Bose-Einstein Condensate
This appendix reprints Ref. [67]: K. Xu, Y. Liu, D.E. Miller, J.K. Chin, W. Setiawan and W. Ketterle, Observation of Strong Quantum Depletion in a Gaseous
Bose-Einstein Condensate, arXiv:cond-mat/0601184 (2006).

145

Observation of Strong Quantum Depletion in a Gaseous Bose-Einstein Condensate
K. Xu∗ , Y. Liu, D.E. Miller, J.K. Chin, W. Setiawan and W. Ketterle†
Department of Physics, MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms,
and Research Laboratory of Electronics, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139(Dated: January 9, 2006)
We studied quantum depletion in a gaseous Bose-Einstein condensate. An optical lattice enhanced
the atomic interactions and modified the dispersion relation resulting in strong quantum depletion.
The depleted fraction was directly observed as a diffuse background in the time-of-flight images.
Bogoliubov theory provided a semi-quantitative description for our observations of depleted fractions
in excess of 50%.
PACS numbers: PACS 03.75.Hh, 03.75.Lm, 73.43.Nq

The advent of Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) in
1995 extended the study of quantum fluids from liquid helium to superfluid gases with a 100 million times
lower density. These gaseous condensates featured relatively weak interactions and a condensate fraction close
to 100%, in contrast to liquid helium where the condensate fraction is only 10% [1]. As a result, the gaseouscondensates could be quantitatively described by a single macroscopic wave function shared by all atoms whichis the solution of a non-linear Schrodinger equation. Thisequation provided a mean-field description of collective
excitations, hydrodynamic expansion, vortices and soundpropagation [2].
The fraction of the many-body wavefunction whichcannot be represented by the macroscopic wavefunction
is called the quantum depletion. In a homogenous BEC,
it consists of admixtures of higher momentum states into
the ground state of the system. The fraction of the quantum depletion η0 canp be calculated through Bogoliubov
theory: η0 = 1.505 ρa3s where ρ is the atomic density
and as is the s-wave scattering length [3]. For 23 Na ata typical density of 1014 cm−3 , the quantum depletion is
0.2%.
For the last decade, it has been a major goal of the
field to map out the transition from gaseous condensates
to liquid helium. Beyond-mean-field effects of a few percent were identified in the temperature dependence ofcollective excitations in a condensate [4, 5]. The quantum depletion increases for higher densities – however, atdensities approaching 1015 cm−3 the lifetime of the gas
is dramatically shortened by three-body collisions. Attempts to increase the scattering length near a Feshbachresonance were also limited by losses [6, 7]. Recently, deviations from mean-field behavior were seen in collective
excitations of a molecular condensate near a Feshbachresonance [8, 9], but had a sign opposite to predictions.
Therefore, the transition between a quantum gas and a∗ Contact Info: kwxu@mit.edu† Website: cua.mit.edu/ketterle groupquantum liquid has been largely unexplored. Strongly
correlated systems, which are no longer superfluid, werestudied in 1D systems [10, 11], and in optical lattices[12, 13].
In this Letter, we report the first quantitative study ofstrong quantum depletion in a superfluid gas. Exposing
atoms to an optical lattice enhances quantum depletionin two ways. First, the lattice localizes the atoms at
the lattice sites and increases the atomic density. The
increased density leads to enhanced interactions (by up
to an order of magnitude in our experiment), ultimately
limited by inelastic collisional losses. The second effectof the lattice is to modify the dispersion relation T (k),which for free atoms is simply the kinetic energy T (k) =~2 k 2 /2m. The effect of a weak lattice can be accounted
for by an increased effective mass. For a deep lattice,when the width of the first band becomes comparable orsmaller than the interaction energy, the full dispersion
relation is required for a quantitative description.
In addition to enhancing the quantum depletion, an
optical lattice also enables its direct observation in timeof-flight. For bare condensates in a harmonic trap, thequantum depletion cannot be observed during ballistic
expansion in the typical Thomas-Fermi regime. Because
the mean-field energy (divided by ~) is much greater than
the trap frequency, the cloud remains locally adiabatic
during the ballistic expansion. The condensate at highdensity transforms adiabatically into a condensate at low
density with diminishing quantum depletion. Therefore,
the true momentum distribution of the trapped condensate including quantum depletion and, for the same reason, phonon excitations can only be observed by in-situ
momentum analysis such as Bragg spectroscopy [14, 15].
In an optical lattice, the confinement frequency at eachlattice site far exceeds the interaction energy, and thetime-of-flight images are essentially a snapshot of thefrozen-in momentum distribution of the wavefunction at
the time of the lattice switch-off, thus allowing for a direct observation of the quantum depletion.
The experiment setup is similar to that of our previous work [16]: A 23 Na BEC containing up to 5 × 105
atoms in the |F = 1, mF = −1i state was loaded into acrossed optical dipole trap. The number of condensed
atoms was controlled through three-body decay in a compressed trap, after which the trap was relaxed to allow
further evaporation and re-thermalization. A verticalmagnetic field gradient was applied to compensate forgravity and avoid sagging in the weak trap. The final
trap frequencies were ωx,y,z = 2π × 60, 60, 85 Hz. The
mean Thomas-Fermi radius was ∼ 12 µm for 1.7 × 105
atoms.
The lattice beams were derived from the same singlemode infra-red laser at 1064 nm used for the crossed optical dipole trap. All five beams were frequency-shifted byat least 20 MHz with respect to each other via acoustooptical modulator to eliminate cross interference between
different beams. The three lattice beams had a 1/e2 waist of ∼ 90 µm at the condensate, and were retroreflected to form standing waves. The two horizontal
beams were orthogonal to each other, while the third
beam was tilted ∼ 20◦ with respect to the vertical axis
due to limited optical access. One and two dimensionallattices were formed using either one or both of the horizontal beams. The trap parameters were chosen suchthat during the ramping of the optical lattice potential,
the overall Thomas-Fermi radii remained approximately
constant in order to minimize intra-band excitations. All
the measurements were performed at a peak lattice site
occupancy number ∼ 7, as determined by a tradeoff between small three-body losses and good signal-to-noise
ratio.
The optical lattice was linearly ramped up to a peakpotential of 22 ± 2 ER in time τramp , and then linearly ramped back down in the same amount of time.
This ramp sequence was interrupted at various times by
a sudden switch-off of all lattice and trapping potentials(< 1µs). Absorption images were taken after 10 mstime-of-flight, reflecting the momentum distribution of
the system at the instant of release (Figure 1). Based on
the number of atoms remaining in the condensate after
the full ramping sequence (& 80%), we concluded that
τramp & 1 ms satisfies the intra-band adiabaticity condition. In the following discussion, all measurements were
performed for τramp = 50 ms.
The loss and revival of the interference contrast, as illustrated in Figure 1, has been associated with the quantum phase transition from a superfluid state to a Mottinsulator state [12, 13]. The presence of sharp interference peaks indicates coherence and superfluid behavior,
whereas the presence of a single broad peak indicates theinsulating phase. However, as we show in this paper,even before the lattice depth exceeds the critical value
for the phase transition, a diffuse background gradually
emerges as a result of quantum depletion. The interference peaks represent the population in the zero quasimomentum state, and the diffuse background represents
the population in the rest of the Brillouin zone. We only
account for the lowest energy band as the population in

Lattice Depth

2
22 ER

0

11 ER

50 ms

18 ER

22 ER

100 ms

11 ER

0 ER

FIG. 1: Interference patterns in time-of-flight: The ramping sequence was interrupted as the lattice is ramped up(11, 18, 22 ER ) and back down (11, 0 ER ). The time-of-flightwas 10 ms; the field of view is 861 µm×1075 µm.

higher bands remains negligible for our parameters.
In the time-of-flight images, we masked off the sharp
interference peaks and performed a two-dimensional
gaussian fit on the diffuse background peak. After thelattice was fully ramped down, most of the atoms remained in the condensed fraction while a small fraction(up to 20%) were heated and distributed across the first
Brillouin zone likely due to the technical noise and imperfect adiabaticity of the ramp. A linear interpolation wasused to subtract this small heating contribution (up to
10% at the maximum lattice depth) and obtain the quantum depletion Nqd /N , where Nqd is the number of atoms
in the diffuse background peak (quantum depletion) andN the total number.
We performed this measurement for one, two and three
dimensional optical lattices, and the main results areshown in Figure 2. The quantum depletion became significant for lattice depths of & 10 ER for a three dimen2/2m, where klatt = 2π/λlattsional lattice (ER = ~2 klatt
is the lattice wavenumber). Note that the Mott-insulatortransition starts to occur only at lattice depths & 16 ER(see below). Nqd /N remained small for one and two dimensional lattices.
A theoretical description of quantum depletion can bederived from the Bogoliubov theory which is the standard theory to describe the ground state properties of a
weakly interacting system. The population in the (quasi) momentum state k is given by [3, 17, 18]:
p
T (k) + n0 U − 2 T (k)n0U + T 2 (k)
2
p
vk =
(1)
2 2 T (k)n0 U + T 2 (k)where T (k) is the kinetic energy, n0 is the occupancy
number [per cubic lattice cell of (λlatt /2)3 ] in the zero
momentum state, and U is the on-site interaction energy [19–22]. Incidentally, vk is one of the coefficientsin the Bogoliubov transformation. The total occupancy
number n is given by
P the sum of n0 and the quantum
depletion: n = n0 + k6=0 vk2 . For a given density n, thequantum depletion can be obtained by using Eq. (1) andthe appropriate dispersion relation T (k).

3
1. 0

3D
2D
1D

J1

J2 J
3 J

4

0. 3

3D
2D
1D

0. 6

U and J [ER]Quantum Depletion

0. 8

0. 4

(i )
(ii)
(iii)

0. 4

J5

J6

J7

0. 2

U3D

0. 1

U2D

0. 2

U1D
0. 0

0. 0

5

5

10

15

10

15

20

25

30

Lattice Depth [ER]20

Lattice Depth [ER]FIG. 2: Quantum depletion of a 23 Na BEC confined in a one,
two and three dimensional optical lattice: the data points
with statistical error bars are measured Nqd /N ; the three
thick curves are the theoretical calculation of Nqd /N using
Bogoliubov theory and local density approximation. For comparison, also shown are (thin curves): (i) the (smoothed out)
Mott-insulator fraction NM I /N based on a mean-field theory; (ii) the calculated quantum depletion for a homogeneous
system of per-site occupancy number n = 1 and (iii) n = 7.

A band structure calculation was performed to obtain
the on-site interaction U (and also the tunnelling rateJ) as functions of the lattice depths, shown in Figure
3. In calculating U , we use a Wannier density function
along the dimensions with a lattice, and a uniform density in the ones without. J is independent of the lattice
wavelength or atomic mass for a given lattice depth (allenergies measured in ER ).
The quantum depletion for a lattice of uniform occupation is obtained
R by integrating over the first Brillouinzone: n = n0 + vk2 dk. For a sufficiently deep lattice(& 5 ER ), the dispersion relation is given by:
T (q) = 4J

d
X
i=1

sin2 (qi π) + 4ER

3
X

qi2 .

(2)

i=d

where dimensions 1 through d are assumed to have alattice present and q = k λlatt /4π.
For an inhomogeneous system such as a harmonicallyconfined condensate, we apply the result from the homogeneous system to shells of different occupancy numbers
using the local density approximation (as the dependenceof the quantum depletion on the occupancy number isslowly-varying). The calculated quantum depleted fractions are plotted in Figure 2, in reasonable agreementwith the experimental observations. The remaining discrepancies may be due to unaccounted heating, a systematic overestimate of the background, and the inadequacies of Bogoliubov theory for large quantum depletion.

FIG. 3: On-site interaction U and tunnelling rate J for a
23
Na BEC in an optical lattice at 1064 nm: UdD is for ad-dimensional lattice. In a three dimensional lattice, the superfluid to Mott-insulator transition
p for occupancy number noccurs when Jn = 6(2n + 1 + 2 n(n + 1))J equals U3D [seeEq. (3)]. The horizontal locations of the crossing points where
Jn = U3D are the critical lattice depths.

In free space, the dispersion curve is a continuous
parabola. Both the number of populated states and the
population in each state increases with the atomic density ρ, and the quantum depletion η0 is proportional toρ3/2 . This still holds for shallow lattices (. 5 ER ) where
the quantum depletion (η) does not saturate the entire
 ∗
3/2
ǫ
m∗
first Brillouin zone: η = η0 ǫMMFF m(ǫMF and m are
the free space mean-field energy and atomic mass; ǫ∗MF
and m∗ are the lattice-enhanced mean-field energy andeffective mass) [23].
The situation changes for deeper lattices as the interaction energy U becomes comparable to the width of thefirst energy band (approximately 4J). In this regime, thequantum depletion starts to saturate the lowest band,
but the higher bands remain virtually empty due to thelarge band gap. While the population Nqd in the lowest band continues to increase with the atomic density
ρ = n/(λlatt /2)3 , the quantum depleted fraction Nqd /N
actually decreases with ρ [see Fig. 2 where the calculated
quantum depletion is bigger for n = 1 than for n = 7 atlarge lattice depths (& 9 ER )].
The fact that the observed quantum depletion for one
or two dimensional lattices remained small provides further evidence for our interpretation of the diffuse background as quantum depletion. In the dimension witha lattice present, the band width is proportional to thetunneling rate J which decreases exponentially with thelattice depth. The interaction energy U increases muchslower with the lattice depth. Therefore the flattening of
the dispersion relation contributes more significantly tothe increased quantum depletion. Since this flattening

4
does not occur in the dimension without a lattice, thequantum depletion for one or two dimensional lattices
is expected to increase much slower compared to three
dimensional lattice, consistent with our observation.
Furthermore, one can show that in our regime, theobserved quantum depletion far exceeds the fraction of
atoms in the Mott-insulator phase. For the three dimensional lattice, the superfluid to Mott-insulator transition
occurs as the lattice depth exceeds certain critical values. According to the mean-field theory in a homogenous
bosonic lattice system [19–22], the critical value (U/J)c
at which the phase transition occurs for occupancy number n is given by:p(3)(U/J)c = z(2n + 1 + 2 n(n + 1))
where z is the number of nearest neighbors (z = 2d fora d-dimensional cubic lattice). For an inhomogeneous
system such as a trapped condensate, shells of different
occupancy numbers enter the Mott-insulator phase fromoutside as the lattice potential is increased and U/J exceeds the critical values.
In our experiment, the peak occupancy number is ∼ 7.
We could divide the Thomas-Fermi profile of the condensate into 7 shells of average occupancy n = 1, 2, ..., 7
and assume each shell enters the Mott-insulator phase as
the lattice depth increases above the corresponding critical value. From Figure 3, the critical lattice depths in athree dimensional cubic lattice for n = 1, 2, ..., 7 are 16.3,
18.5, 20.0, 21.2, 22.1, 22.9, 23.6 ER respectively. The
integrated Mott-insulator fraction NMI /N as a functionof lattice depths is plotted in Figure 2. Instead of a step
function with jumps at each critical lattice depth, we
use a smooth spline curve for NMI /N , which is more
realistic given the fluctuations associated with the atom
numbers and lattice depths. NMI /N clearly exhibits amuch sharper transition as the lattice depth increases,in contrast to the gradual increase of the quantum depletion (particularly for lattice depths below the first criticalvalue 16 ER ).
In the case of one and two dimensional lattices, a Mottinsulator transition would only occur for lattice depths
much larger than those in our experiment. Note thatEq. (3) is not directly applicable as the dimensions without lattice beams in our system are only loosely confinedand cannot be considered frozen[21]. In addition, n in
Eq. (3) is the number of atoms per lattice site and far
exceeds 7 for the lower-dimensional lattices.
In conclusion, we conducted the first quantitative
study of quantum depletion in a gaseous BEC throughthe application of an optical lattice, and found reasonableagreement with a model based on Bogoliubov theory in
the predominantly superfluid regime. A complementary
study was recently reported by Gerbier et al.. [24, 25] of
the non-vanishing visibility of the interference peaks in a

Mott insulator as a result of the admixture of particlehole states. The two works together give a complete description of the ground state in both the superfluid andinsulating phases. More elaborate theoretical treatments
for the intermediate case have been presented in Refs
[26–28].
The authors would like to thank Jamil Abo-Shaeer andTakashi Mukaiyama for experimental assistances. This
research is supported by NSF, ONR, ARO, and NASA.

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