0607171v2

related topics
{trap, ion, state}
{wave, scattering, interference}
{light, field, probe}
{photon, photons, single}
{cavity, atom, atoms}
{temperature, thermal, energy}
{state, phys, rev}

Quantized Rotation of Atoms From Photons with Orbital Angular Momentum

M. F. Andersen, C. Ryu, Pierre Clade, V. Natarajan, A. Vaziri, K. Helmerson, W. D. Phillips

abstract: We demonstrate the coherent transfer of the orbital angular momentum of a photon to an atom in quantized units of hbar, 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.

oai_identifier:
oai:arXiv.org:quant-ph/0607171
categories:
quant-ph
comments:
New version, 4 pages and 3 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters
doi:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.170406
arxiv_id:
quant-ph/0607171
created:
2006-07-25
updated:
2006-10-20

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