Rotating a Bose-Einstein condensate using photons with orbital angular momentum

Kristian Helmerson; Mikkel F. Andersen; Changhyun Ryu; Pierre Cladé; Vasant Natarajan; Alipasha Vaziri; Azure Hansen; William D. Phillips

doi:10.1117/12.681608

11 September 2006 Rotating a Bose-Einstein condensate using photons with orbital angular momentum

Kristian Helmerson, Mikkel F. Andersen, Changhyun Ryu, Pierre Cladé, Vasant Natarajan, Alipasha Vaziri, Azure Hansen, William D. Phillips

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 6326, Optical Trapping and Optical Micromanipulation III; 632603 (2006) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.681608
Event: SPIE Optics + Photonics, 2006, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

We demonstrate the coherent transfer of the orbital angular momentum of a photon to an atom in quantized units of h, using a 2-photon stimulated Raman process with Laguerre-Gaussian beams to generate an atomic vortex state in a Bose-Einstein condensate of sodium atoms. We show that the process is coherent by creating superpositions of different vortex states, where the relative phase between the states is determined by the relative phases of the optical fields. Furthermore, we create vortices of charge 2 by transferring to each atom the orbital angular momentum of two photons. We subsequently use our technique to induce rotation of the condensate confined in an asymmetric, ring-shaped hybrid optical and magnetic trap. We observe the cloud rotating for up to 13 seconds, due to the superfluid character of the condensate.

Citation Download Citation

Kristian Helmerson, Mikkel F. Andersen, Changhyun Ryu, Pierre Cladé, Vasant Natarajan, Alipasha Vaziri, Azure Hansen, and William D. Phillips "Rotating a Bose-Einstein condensate using photons with orbital angular momentum", Proc. SPIE 6326, Optical Trapping and Optical Micromanipulation III, 632603 (11 September 2006); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.681608

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