A Bose-Einstein Condensate in a Uniform Light-Induced Vector Potential

Published

March 30, 2009

Author(s)

Yu-Ju Lin, Robert L. Compton, Abigail R. Perry, William D. Phillips, James V. Porto, Ian B. Spielman

Abstract

We use a two-photon dressing field to create an effective vector gauge potential for Bose-condensed ^87Rb atoms in the F=1 hyperfine ground state. The dressed states in this Raman field are spin and momentum superpositions, and we adiabatically load the atoms into the lowest energy dressed state. The effective Hamiltonian of these neutral atoms is like that of charged particles in a uniform magnetic vector potential, whose magnitude is set by the strength and detuning of Raman coupling. The spin and momentum decomposition of the dressed states reveals the strength of the effective vector potential, and our measurements agree quantitatively with a simple single-particle model. While the uniform effective vector potential described here corresponds to zero magnetic field, our technique can be extended to non-uniform vector potentials, giving non-zero effective magnetic fields.

Citation

Physical Review Letters

Volume

102

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

Bose-Einstein Condensate, effective magnetic fields

Citation

Lin, Y. , Compton, R. , Perry, A. , Phillips, W. , Porto, J. and Spielman, I. (2009), A Bose-Einstein Condensate in a Uniform Light-Induced Vector Potential, Physical Review Letters, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=900224 (Accessed October 22, 2025)