Southwest Quantum Information and Technology

Two-particle quantum interference in tunnel-coupled optical tweezers

Adam Kaufman, University of Colorado at Boulder, JILA

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Motional control of neutral atoms has a rich history and increasingly interest has turned to single-atom control. I will present work in which we begin by laser cooling single bosonic atoms to near their vibrational ground state in optical tweezer traps. Our recent work has explored the interference of these independently-prepared atoms in a limit where they can be considered non-interacting. We observe a massive-particle analog of the Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) effect when we arrange for atom tunneling to play the role of a balanced photon beamsplitter. The HOM signature is used to probe the effect of atomic indistinguishability on the two-boson dynamics for a variety of initial conditions. I will discuss the implication of these experiments for the assembly and control of a variety of quantum systems, ranging from nano-photonic interfaces to entanglement entropy measurements in many-body systems.