Abstract
We consider two rubidium atoms, prepared in the same S or P Rydberg states, near an optical nanofibre, and we determine their van der Waals interaction potential as a function of their ...separation along the nanofibre axis, their distance to the nanofibre axis, and their relative azimuthal angle. We compare results obtained through direct diagonalisation of the Hamiltonian (including quadrupolar interaction terms) with second-order perturbation calculations, and we identify which couplings mainly contribute to the potential in the presence of the nanofibre and in free-space. We relate the appearance of new allowed couplings to the broken rotation symmetry around the interatomic axis due to the presence of the fibre. These couplings induce novel features and cause a reshaping of the interaction anisotropy and formation of an interaction potential well for P states near the nanofibre. Our work constitutes an important step in the assessment of Rydberg atom-nanofibre quantum interfaces and devices.
Abstract
We perform spin noise spectroscopy experiments in metastable helium atoms at room temperature, with a probe light whose frequency is blue detuned from the
D
0
line. Both circular ...birefringence fluctuations (Faraday noise) and linear birefringence fluctuations (ellipticity noise) are explored theoretically and experimentally. In particular, it is shown that in both cases but for different optical detunings, two noise resonances are isolated at the Larmor frequency and at twice the Larmor frequency with a behavior, which strongly depends on the orientation of the probe field polarization. The simple structure of metastable helium allows us to probe, model and explain the changes in the behavior of these peaks in terms of circular and linear dichroisms and birefringences as well as in terms of spin oscillation modes.
We propose a new physical approach for encoding and processing of quantum information in ensembles of multilevel quantum systems, where the different bits are not carried by individual particles but ...associated with the collective population of different internal levels. One- and two-bit gates are implemented by collective internal state transitions taking place in the presence of an excitation blockade mechanism, which restricts the population of each internal state to the values zero and unity. Quantum computers with 10-20 bits can be built via this scheme in single trapped clouds of ground state atoms subject to the Rydberg excitation blockade mechanism, and the linear dependence between register size and the number of internal quantum states in atoms offers realistic means to reach larger registers.
We report on numerical calculations of the spontaneous emission rate of a Rydberg-excited sodium atom in the vicinity of an optical nanofibre. In particular, we study how this rate varies with the ...distance of the atom to the fibre, the fibre's radius, the symmetry s or p of the Rydberg state as well as its principal quantum number. We find that a fraction of the spontaneously emitted light can be captured and guided along the fibre. This suggests that such a setup could be used for networking atomic ensembles, manipulated in a collective way due to the Rydberg blockade phenomenon.
We theoretically investigate the quantum statistical properties of light transmitted through an atomic medium with strong optical nonlinearity induced by Rydberg-Rydberg van der Waals interactions. ...In our setup, atoms are located in a cavity and nonresonantly driven on a two-photon transition from their ground state to a Rydberg level via an intermediate state by the combination of the weak signal field and a strong control beam. To characterize the transmitted light, we compute the second-order correlation function . The simulations we obtained on the specific case of rubidium atoms suggest that the bunched or antibunched nature of the outgoing beam can be chosen at will by tuning the physical parameters appropriately.
We isolate a novel four-wave mixing process, enabled by coherent population trapping (CPT), leading to efficient phase sensitive amplification. This process is permitted by the exploitation of two ...transitions starting from the same twofold degenerate ground state. One of the transitions is used for CPT, defining bright and dark states from which ultra intense four-wave mixing is obtained via the other transition. This leads to the measurement of a strong phase sensitive gain even for low optical densities and out-of-resonance excitation. The enhancement of four-wave mixing is interpreted in the framework of the dark-state polariton formalism.
Adult diffuse gliomas commonly recur regardless of therapy. As recurrence typically arises from the peritumoral edema adjacent to the resected bulk tumor, the profiling of somatic mutations from ...infiltrative malignant cells within this critical, unresected region could provide important insights into residual disease. A key obstacle has been the inability to distinguish between next-generation sequencing (NGS) noise and the true but weak signal from tumor cells hidden among the noncancerous brain tissue of the peritumoral edema. Here, we developed and validated True2 sequencing to reduce NGS-associated errors to <1 false positive/100 kb panel positions while detecting 97.6% of somatic mutations with an allele frequency ≥0.1%. True2 was then used to study the tumor and peritumoral edema of 22 adult diffuse gliomas including glioblastoma, astrocytoma, oligodendroglioma, and NF1-related low-grade neuroglioma. The tumor and peritumoral edema displayed a similar mutation burden, indicating that surgery debulks these cancers physically but not molecularly. Moreover, variants in the peritumoral edema included unique cancer driver mutations absent in the bulk tumor. Finally, analysis of multiple samples from each patient revealed multiple subclones with unique mutations in the same gene in 17 of 22 patients, supporting the occurrence of convergent evolution in response to patient-specific selective pressures in the tumor microenvironment that may form the molecular foundation of recurrent disease. Collectively, True2 enables the detection of ultralow frequency mutations during molecular analyses of adult diffuse gliomas, which is necessary to understand cancer evolution, recurrence, and individual response to therapy.
True2 is a next-generation sequencing workflow that facilitates unbiased discovery of somatic mutations across the full range of variant allele frequencies, which could help identify residual disease vulnerabilities for targeted adjuvant therapies.
We demonstrate the possibility to generate squeezed vacuum states of light by four wave mixing (FWM) enabled coherent population trapping in a metastable helium cell at room temperature. Contrary to ...usual FWM far detuned schemes, we work at resonance with an atomic transition. We investigate the properties of such states and show that the noise variances of the squeezed and anti-squeezed quadratures cannot be explained by the simple presence of losses. A specific model allows us to demonstrate the role played by spontaneous emitted photons, which experience squeezing while propagation inside of the cell. This theoretical model, which takes into account both residual absorption and spontaneous emission, leads to an excellent agreement with the experimental data without any adjusted parameter.
PDF
