Coherent control of ultracold collisions with chirped light: Direction matters

M. J. Wright*, J. A. Pechkis, J. L. Carini, S. Kallush, R. Kosloff, P. L. Gould

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

42 Scopus citations

Abstract

We demonstrate the ability to coherently control ultracold atomic Rb collisions using frequency-chirped light on the nanosecond time scale. For certain center frequencies of the chirp, the rate of inelastic trap-loss collisions induced by negatively chirped light is dramatically suppressed compared to the case of a positive chirp. We attribute this to a fundamental asymmetry in the system: an excited wave packet moves inward on the attractive molecular potential. For a positive chirp, the resonance condition moves outward in time, while for a negative chirp, it moves inward, in the same direction as the excited wave packet; this allows multiple interactions between the wave packet and the light, enabling the wave packet to be returned coherently to the ground state. Classical and quantum calculations support this interpretation.

Original languageEnglish
Article number051401
JournalPhysical Review A - Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
Volume75
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - 4 May 2007

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