Optical Devices for Cold Atoms and Bose-Einstein Condensates

Naceur Gaaloul (1, 2) , Amine Jaouadi (1, 2) , Mourad Telmini (2) , Laurence Pruvost (3) , Eric Charron (4)

1 PPM - Laboratoire de Photophysique Moléculaire
2 LSAMA - Laboratoire de Spectroscopie Atomique, Moléculaire et Applications
3 LAC - Laboratoire Aimé Cotton
4 Approches théoriques en dynamique quantique

The manipulation of cold atoms with optical fields is a very promising technique for a variety of applications ranging from laser cooling and trapping to coherent atom transport and matter wave interferometry. Optical fields have also been proposed as interesting tools for quantum information processing with cold atoms. In this paper, we present a theoretical study of the dynamics of a cold 87Rb atomic cloud falling in the gravity field in the presence of two crossing dipole guides. The cloud is either deflected or split between the two branches of this guide. We explore the possibilities of optimization of this device and present preliminary results obtained in the case of zero-temperature dilute Bose-Einstein condensates.

Mots clés: cold atoms; optical manipulation; beam splitter; deflector

Domaines: Physique Quantique [quant-ph]

Naceur Gaaloul, Amine Jaouadi, Mourad Telmini, Laurence Pruvost, Eric Charron. Optical Devices for Cold Atoms and Bose-Einstein Condensates. AIP Conference Proceedings, 2007, 935, pp.10. ⟨10.1063/1.2795399⟩. ⟨hal-00144111v2⟩