Shortcut to adiabaticity in optical transfer of ultracold atoms


  Gal Ness  ,  Constantine Shkedrov  ,  Yanay Florshaim  ,  Yoav Sagi  
Department of Physics and Solid State Institute, Technion

Adiabaticity is a common approach to prevent undesirable excitation of the system due to dynamic variations of the Hamiltonian. However, true adiabaticity means asymptotically long times which inevitably lead to higher decoherence, more noise, and overall slower repetition rate. “Shortcut to adiabaticity” would be an alternative fast process to reproduce the same final state within a finite time. Transport of atoms is a prototypical application. Fast motion of the trapping potential may induce sloshing and eventually heat the atoms. We have developed a novel feed-forward correction technique to the transport trajectory, which suppresses the sloshing corresponding Fourier component of the trajectory for both harmonic and anharmonic oscillations. We experimentally demonstrate this technique by moving an optical dipole trap on scales much larger than its size on timescales on the order of its oscillation period, while perfectly canceling the sloshing mode.