Steinberg group: BEC & atom tunneling references



We have been Bose-condensing Rb-87 atoms in a TOP trap, in order to study the quantum mechanics of particles interacting with time-dependent barriers. Our major goal is to observe atoms while they tunnel through a forbidden region (formed by a focused laser beam which repels the atoms), and to study a range of techniques for measuring (or defining) the time the atoms spend in this region. Related issues include the role of dissipation in measurement, the ability of collapse and noise to enhance tunneling rates, and a number of counter-intuitive predictions about the evolution of momentum distributions during the interactions with tunnel barriers. These latter effects (largely predictions by J. Gonzalo Muga and collaborators, with whom we maintain a close collaboration; see for example S. Brouard and J. G. Muga, Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 2621 (1998) ) may also be useful for performing quantum tomography on expanding Bose condensates. Recently, we have been able to observe atomic interference patterns, and are studying the possibility of using these interference patterns to directly probe the wave function of a Bose condensate, and look for the dynamical development of atom-atom entanglement.



SOME RECENT POSTERS AND PRESENTATIONS

A poster describing some of the major goals of our BEC experiment, as of February 2007

Chris's 2006 OSA talk about our BEC experiment

Amplification of Superluminality,presentation at ITP Mini-Workshop on Quantum Optics (2002) by A.M. Steinberg.

SOME (MORE OR LESS) RECENT PAPERS

Speakable and Unspeakable, Past and Future, A.M. Steinberg, in SCIENCE AND ULTIMATE REALITY: Quantum Theory, Cosmology and Complexity, ed. John D. Barrow, Paul C.W. Davies, and Charles L. Harper, Jr., Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Experimental issues in quantum-mechanical time measurement, A.M. Steinberg, in Time in Quantum Mechanics, edited by J.G. Muga et al. (Springer-Verlag, 2002), pp. 305-325

On energy transfer by detection of a tunneling atom, A. M. Steinberg, Journal of the Korean Physical Society 35 (3), 122 (1999).

`` An atom optics experiment to investigate faster-than-light tunneling,'' A.M. Steinberg, S. Myrskog, Han Seb Moon, Hyun Ah Kim, Jalani Fox, and Jung Bog Kim, Ann. Phys. (Leipzig) 7, 593 (1998).

`` Can a falling tree make a noise in two forests at the same time?'', A. M. Steinberg, in Causality and Locality in Modern Physics, S. Jeffers, G. Hunter, and J.-P. Vigier, eds., Kluwer Academic Publishers (Dordrecht: 1997), p. 431.

``Conditional probabilities in quantum theory and the tunneling-time controversy", A.M. Steinberg, Physical Review A, vol. 52, (no. 1): 32-42, July (1995).

``How much time does a tunneling particle spend in the barrier region?", A.M. Steinberg, Physical Review Letters, vol. 74, (no. 13): 2405-9, March (1995).

``Measurement of the single-photon tunneling time", A.M. Steinberg, P.G. Kwiat, and R.Y. Chiao, Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 71, (no. 5): 708-11, August (1993).

Tunneling Times and Superluminality, R. Y. Chiao and A. M. Steinberg, in Progress in Optics vol. XXXVII, Emil Wolf ed., Elsevier (Amsterdam: 1997), pp. 347-406.

`` Faster Than Light?", R.Y. Chiao, P.G. Kwiat, and A.M. Steinberg, Scientific American, vol. 269, (no. 2): 52-60, August (1993).



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