We show that $N-1$ degenerate dark states can be generated by coupling $N$-fold degenerate ground states and a common excited state with $N$ laser fields. Interferences between light waves with different frequencies can produce laser fields with time-dependent amplitudes, which can induce not only $\mathrm{U}\left(N\right)$ non-Abelian vector fields but also the scalar ones for the adiabatic motion of atoms in such laser fields. As an example, a time-periodic gauge potential is produced by applying specific laser fields to a tripod system. Some features of the Landau levels and the ground-state phase diagram of a rotating Bose-Einstein condensate for a concrete gauge field are also discussed.

We study the ground-state properties of spin-1 bosonic atoms trapped in a one-dimensional optical lattice with harmonic confinement. We have developed a highly efficient numerical method based on the Gutzwiller approximation to clarify the inhomogeneous magnetic phases induced by the harmonic confining potential. A quantum phase transition from a superfluid to a Mott insulator is examined for the respective cases with antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic interactions. It is shown that the profile of local spins over the lattice sites changes as a function of the interaction strength forming the characteristic structures, which closely correlates with the average number of atoms at the sites. For antiferromagnetic cases, we find that there is a crossover from a superfluid polar condensate to Mott-insulator domains consisting of either a spin-singlet pair or a single spin at each site.

Dicke narrowing is a phenomenon that dramatically reduces the Doppler width of spectral lines, due to frequent velocity-changing collisions. A similar phenomenon occurs for electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) resonances, and facilitates ultranarrow spectral features in room-temperature vapor. We directly measure the Dicke-like narrowing by studying EIT line shapes as a function of the angle between the pump and probe beams. The measurements are in good agreement with an analytic theory with no fit parameters. The results show that Dicke narrowing can increase substantially the tolerance of hot-vapor EIT to angular deviations. We demonstrate the importance of this effect for applications such as imaging and spatial solitons using a single-shot imaging experiment, and discuss the implications for the feasibility of storing images in atomic vapor.

Exact analytical solutions describing spatially localized self-trapped modes in highly nonlocal nonlinear media are presented. We formulate the model in a coordinate-free form and show that it allows us to obtain useful closed-form expressions for a large variety of mode structures and their interactions in a highly nonlocal nonlinear medium.

We investigate both experimentally and numerically the space-time dynamics of an ultrashort laser pulse during self-focusing and nonlinear propagation in water by means of a time-gated angular-spectrum characterization. The results identify the formation of shock fronts on both trailing and leading edges of the wave packet that are due to the formation of subluminal and superluminal group velocity intensity peaks, sustained by conical emission.

We reduce the question of whether a given quantum mixed state is separable or entangled to the problem of existence of a certain full family of commuting normal matrices whose matrix elements are partially determined by components of the pure states constituting a decomposition of the considered mixture. The method reproduces many known entanglement and/or separability criteria, and provides yet another geometrical characterization of mixed separable states.

Quantum mechanics imposes “monogamy” constraints on the sharing of entanglement. We show that, despite these limitations, entanglement can be fully “promiscuous,” i.e., simultaneously present in unlimited two-body and many-body forms in states living in an infinite-dimensional Hilbert space. Monogamy just bounds the divergence rate of the various entanglement contributions. This is demonstrated in simple families of $N$-mode $(N⩾4)$ Gaussian states of light fields or atomic ensembles, which therefore enable infinitely more freedom in the distribution of information, as opposed to systems of individual qubits. Such a finding is of importance for the quantification, understanding, and potential exploitation of shared quantum correlations in continuous variable systems. We discuss how promiscuity gradually arises when considering simple families of discrete variable states, with increasing Hilbert space dimension towards the continuous variable limit. Such models are somehow analogous to Gaussian states with asymptotically diverging, but finite, squeezing. In this respect, we find that non-Gaussian states (which in general are more entangled than Gaussian states) exhibit also the interesting feature that their entanglement is more shareable: in the non-Gaussian multipartite arena, unlimited promiscuity can be already achieved among three entangled parties, while this is impossible for Gaussian, even infinitely squeezed states.

We have measured the absolute emission cross section for the $\mathrm{Cl}_2{}^{+}$ $A{}^2\Pi _u–X{}^2\Pi _g$ system for $10–750\mathrm{eV}$ electrons incident on chlorine molecules. The cross section for the system possesses a broad peak at $100\mathrm{eV}$ of $2.0\times {10}^{-16}{\mathrm{cm}}^2$, typical of such ionization processes. At this energy, the $A\text{−}X$ cross section is responsible for two-thirds of the total $\mathrm{Cl}_2{}^{+}$ production and one-third of the total ionization cross section. We also measured the emission cross section from $7\text{to}740\mathrm{eV}$ for the $307\mathrm{nm}$ system of ${\mathrm{Cl}}_2$. The energy dependence of the cross section indicates that the excitation is to a ${\mathrm{Cl}}_2$ ${}^1\Sigma _u^{+}$ or ${}^1\Pi _u$ state with a decay to a repulsive potential.

We use a linear transmission technique to measure total cross sections for positron scattering from benzene, cyclohexane, and aniline. In the case of cyclohexane, the energy range of the present study is $0.1–20\mathrm{eV}$, while for benzene and aniline it is $0.2–20\mathrm{eV}$. With respect to benzene and cyclohexane, comparison is made to the only other existing results we know of [Makochekanwa and co-workers, Phys. Rev. A 68, 032707 (2003); 72, 042705 (2005)]. Agreement with those data is only marginal, being particularly poor at the overlap lower energies. Unlike Kimura et al. [J. Phys. B 37, 1461 (2004)], we find the low-energy dependence of the positron-benzene total cross sections to be qualitatively similar to those found in the electron channel [Gulley et al., J. Phys. B 31, 2735 (1998)]. We believe that the present positron-aniline total cross sections represent the first time such data have been measured. These cross sections are almost identical to those we found for benzene, suggesting that substitution of hydrogen by the amine group on the aromatic ring is largely irrelevant to the scattering process in the energy regimes considered.

We consider the (single) electron loss from hydrogenlike, heliumlike, and lithiumlike uranium ions in collisions with neutral atoms in the domain of the low-relativistic impact energies where the collision velocity is already a substantial fraction of the speed of light but still does not exceed the typical electron velocities in the $K$ shell of the uranium ions. In collisions with many-electron atoms at these impact energies the presence of the atomic electrons is of minor importance for the electron loss process which occurs predominantly via the interaction with the unscreened atomic nucleus. This interaction can be effectively very strong if the atoms have large atomic numbers which leads to a tremendous failure of the first Born approximation. We show that experimental data for the loss cross sections can be well described using an eikonal amplitude proposed recently [Phys. Rev. A 75, 062716 (2007)].

We investigate the possibility to deduce momentum space properties from time-dependent density functional calculations. Electron and ion momentum distributions after double ionization of a model helium atom in a strong few-cycle laser pulse are studied. We show that, in this case, the choice of suitable functionals for the observables is considerably more important than the choice of the correlation potential in the time-dependent Kohn-Sham equations. By comparison with the solution of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation, the insufficiency of functionals neglecting electron correlation is demonstrated. We construct a functional of the Kohn-Sham orbitals, which in principle yields the exact momentum distributions of the electrons and the ion. The product-phase approximation is introduced, which reduces the problem of approximating this functional significantly.

A thorough theoretical study of the optical activity in planar chiral metamaterial (PCM) structures, made of both dielectric and metallic media, is conducted by the analysis of gammadion-shaped nanoparticle arrays. The general polarization properties are first analyzed from an effective-medium perspective, by analogy with natural optical activity, and then verified by rigorous numerical simulation, some of which are corroborated by previous experimental results. The numerical analysis suggests that giant polarization rotation (tens of degrees) may be achieved in the PCM structures with a thickness of only hundreds of nanometers. The artificial optical activity arises from circular birefringence induced by the structural chirality and is enhanced by the guided-mode or surface-plasmon resonances taking place in the structures. There are two polarization conversion types in the dielectric PCMs, whereas only one type in the metallic ones. Many intriguing features of the polarization property of PCMs are also revealed and explained: the polarization effect is reciprocal and vanishes in the symmetrically layered structures; the effect occurs only in the transmitted field, but not in the reflected field; and the polarization spectra of two enantiomeric PCM structures are mirror symmetric to each other. These remarkable properties pave the way for the PCMs to be used as polarization elements in new-generation integrated optical systems.

The broadband parametric fluorescence pulse (probe light) with center frequency resonant on the ${}^{87}\mathrm{Rb}$ $D_1$ line was injected into a cold atomic ensemble with coherent light (control light). Due to the low gain in the parametric down conversion process, the probe light was in a highly bunched photon-pair state. By switching off the control light, the probe light within the electromagnetically induced transparency window was mapped on the atoms. When the control light was switched on, the probe light was retrieved and frequency-filtered storage was confirmed from the superbunching effect and an increase of the coherence time of the retrieved light.

We study two continuous variable systems (or two harmonic oscillators) and investigate their entanglement evolution under the influence of non-Markovian thermal environments. The continuous variable systems could be two modes of electromagnetic fields or two nanomechanical oscillators in the quantum domain. We use the quantum open system method to derive the non-Markovian master equations of the reduced density matrix for two different but related models of the continuous variable systems. The two models both consist of two interacting harmonic oscillators. In model A, each of the two oscillators is coupled to its own independent thermal reservoir, while in model B the two oscillators are coupled to a common reservoir. To quantify the degrees of entanglement for bipartite continuous variable systems in Gaussian states, logarithmic negativity is used. We find that the dynamics of the quantum entanglement is sensitive to the initial states, the oscillator-oscillator interaction, the oscillator-environment interaction and the coupling to a common bath or to different, independent baths.

We investigate the security against collective attacks of a continuous variable quantum key distribution scheme in the asymptotic key limit for a realistic setting. The quantum channel connecting the two honest parties is assumed to be lossy and imposes Gaussian noise on the observed quadrature distributions. Secret key rates are given for direct and reverse reconciliation schemes including post-selection in the collective attack scenario. The effect of a nonideal error correction and two-way communication in the classical post-processing step is also taken into account.

We present an experimental study of the intrinsic magnetometric sensitivity of an optical or rf-frequency double-resonance magnetometer in which linearly polarized laser light is used in the optical pumping and detection processes. We show that a semiempirical model of the magnetometer can be used to describe the magnetic resonance spectra. Then, we present an efficient method to predict the optimum operating point of the magnetometer, i.e., the light power and rf Rabi frequency providing maximum magnetometric sensitivity. Finally, we apply the method to investigate the evolution of the optimum operating point with temperature. The method is very efficient to determine relaxation rates and thus allowed us to determine the three collisional disalignment cross sections for the components of the alignment tensor. Both first and second harmonic signals from the magnetometer are considered and compared.

We have applied a multiobjective genetic algorithm to the optimization of multiphoton-excited fluorescence. Our study shows the advantages that this approach can offer to experiments based on adaptive shaping of femtosecond pulses. The algorithm outperforms single-objective optimizations, being totally independent from the bias of user defined parameters and giving simultaneous access to a large set of feasible solutions. The global inspection of their ensemble represents a powerful support to unravel the connections between pulse spectral field features and excitation dynamics of the sample.

Artificial optical birefringence can be realized in three-dimensional photonic crystals with a uniaxial structural symmetry: e.g., woodpile photonic crystals with a tetragonal lattice structure in the long-wavelength limit. The ordinary and extraordinary indices of refraction are determined from calculation of the reflection coefficient for a plane wave incident on the surface of a semi-infinite photonic crystal at different angles. We find that the anisotropy can be widely tuned by simply changing the width and thickness of the dielectric rod. A large relative negative anisotropy over 33% is found. A transition from positive anisotropy to negative anisotropy can be readily achieved. At certain parameters, a structurally anisotropic nanostructure can behave like an optically isotropic medium. Our study opens a window to use artificial nanostructures to create an arbitrary optical anisotropy that is not possible in natural crystals.

We show that a neural network (NN) can be used for automated generation of computer models of light-matter interaction. Nonlinear input-output maps are created for phase-shaped femtosecond laser pulses in the exemplary cases of second-harmonic generation and molecular fluorescence yield. Simulations and experiments demonstrate that the NN has the capability of generalizing and extrapolating beyond initial training data, by predicting the response of the investigated systems for arbitrary laser pulse shapes. Applications are envisioned in the area of quantum control, specifically for the interpolation and extrapolation of control maps and possibly as a tool for investigating control mechanisms. In a wider scope, neural networks might generally provide effective computer models for light-matter interactions for cases where ab initio calculations are intractable.

A recent paper by T. Papenbrock [Phys. Rev. A 72, 041602(R) (2005)] suggests that a determination of the universal factor ${\xi }_{3\mathrm{D}}$ for a harmonically trapped, unpolarized dilute Fermi gas in the unitary regime may be obtained within the framework of a simple density-functional theory (DFT). One of the key results of that work is an estimate for the universal factor ${\xi }_{3\mathrm{D}}\approx 0.54$, which is within 20% of the generally accepted quantum Monte Carlo simulation value of ${\xi }_{3\mathrm{D}}=0.44\pm 0.01$. Motivated by this result, this report investigates the determination of the universal factor ${\xi }_{2\mathrm{D}}$ for a two-dimensional trapped Fermi gas, and suggests that the simple DFT approach of Papenbrock provides an exact result of ${\xi }_{2\mathrm{D}}=1$ in two dimensions.