Southwest Quantum Information and Technology

Tenth Annual Meeting, February 14-17, 2008
University of New Mexico, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Full Program | Thursday Tutorials | Friday | Saturday | Sunday

SESSION 2: Laser Trapping and Cooling
Session Chair: Poul Jessen
11:00-11:30	Nathan Lundblad, National Institute of Standards and Technology
	Ultracold atoms in a radiofrequency-dressed optical lattice
	Abstract. We load cold atoms into an optical lattice dramatically reshaped by the rf dressing of a strongly state-dependent bare lattice. This rf dressing changes the unit cell of the lattice at a subwavelength scale, such that its curvature and topology departs strongly from that of a simple sinusoidal lattice, and in certain limits is ringlike. Such a lattice is generally interesting from a band-structure engineering perspective, and more specifically from a need for lattices that will realize more complicated solid-state analogues. Radiofrequency dressing has previously been performed at length scales from millimeters to tens of microns, but not at the single-optical-wavelength scale. At this length scale significant coupling between adiabatic potentials leads to nonadiabatic transitions, which we characterize. We also investigate the dressing itself by measuring the momentum distribution of the dressed states.
13:00-13:45	Alex Kuzmich, Georgia Institute of Technology (invited)
	A Nuclear Clock
	Abstract. Th-229 nucleus has an exceptionally low-lying first excited state, 7.5 eV relative to the ground state. As the nuclei are affected less by background electromagnetic fields than atoms, laser excitation of the nuclear transition has been proposed as a basis for an ultrastable clock. In this talk, I will report our progress towards trapping triply ionized Th-229.