engleski

Towards experimental realization of synthetic Lorentz forces in classical cold atomic gases

Synthetic magnetic fields are presently a hot research topic in the field of ultra cold atoms [1]. This is motivated by our desire for a completely tunable quantum system, a "holy grail" of experimental physics. Classical cold atomic gases have been overlooked in this emulation effort, yet they offer means to simulate very interesting systems, such as stars and plasma dynamics [2, 3]. By introducing synthetic magnetism to these systems would be extremely interesting and potentially useful in similar classical optical systems. We shortly outline a scheme [3], based on the Doppler effect and absorption - spontaneous emission cycles, for obtaining synthetic Lorentz forces. Furthermore, we present our experimental progress towards realizing this scheme, by using a cold cloud of 87Rb atoms prepared in a magneto-optical trap. We show results obtained with a simplified scheme which serves as a proof of concept. The first goal is to demonstrate velocity dependence of the force, which is perpendicular to the velocity itself. We present our efforts to do this as well. Some very interesting possible outlooks exist for the presented scheme, such as realization of magnetic confinement which could be used for simulating a tokamak and realization of a synthetic magnetic field that corresponds to a magnetic monopole.

cold atoms; synthetic magnetism

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