The Vortex Phase Qubit: Generating Arbitrary, Counter-Rotating, Coherent Superpositions in Bose-Einstein Condensates via Optical Angular Momentum Beams

We demonstrate a waveplate for a pseudo-spin-1/2 Bose-Einstein condensate using a two-photon Raman interaction. The angle of the waveplate is set by the relative phase of the optical fields, and the retardance is controlled by the pulse area. The waveplate allows us to image maps of the Stokes parameters of a Bose-Einstein condensate and thereby measure its relative ground state phase. We demonstrate the waveplate by measuring the Stokes parameters of a coreless vortex.

As an attractive degree of freedom in electromagnetic (EM) waves, the orbital angular momentum (OAM) enables infinite communication channels for both classical and quantum communications. The exploration of OAM generation inspires various designs involving spiral phase plates, antenna arrays, metasurfaces, and computer-generated holograms. In this work, we theoretically and experimentally demonstrate an approach to producing OAM carrying EM waves by a point defect in three-di...

We demonstrate high-fidelity detection of the orbital angular momentum (OAM) of light using a compact and practical OAM spectrometer that maps the OAM spectrum to time. The spectrometer consists of a single optical delay loop to achieve timing mapping, a vortex phase plate that iteratively decreases the OAM value, and a single mode fibre to distinguish zero from non-zero OAM states. Light with arbitrarily OAM compositions can be measured. For light with OAM up to 4hbar, we me...

We model propagation of far-red-detuned optical vortex beams through a Bose-Einstein Condensate using nonlinear Schr\"odinger and Gross-Pitaevskii equations. We show the formation of coupled light/atomic solitons that rotate azimuthally before moving off tangentially, carrying angular momentum. The number, and velocity, of solitons, depends on the orbital angular momentum of the optical field. Using a Bessel-Gauss beam increases radial confinement so that solitons can rotate ...

We have designed interferometers that sort Bose-Einstein condensates into their vortex components. The Bose-Einstein condensates in the two arms of the interferometer are rotated with respect to each other through fixed angles; different vortex components then exit the interferometer in different directions. The method we use to rotate the Bose-Einstein condensates involves asymmetric phase imprinting and is itself new. We have modelled rotation through fixed angles and sorti...

The angular momentum state of light can be described by positions on a higher-order Poincar\'e (HOP) sphere, where superpositions of spin and orbital angular momentum states give rise to laser beams that have found many applications, including optical communication, quantum information processing, microscopy, optical trapping and tweezing and materials processing. Many techniques exist to create such beams but none to date allow their creation at the source. Here we report on...

The experimental realization of emergent spin-orbit coupling through laser-induced Raman transitions in ultracold atoms paves the way for exploring novel superfluid physics and simulating exotic many-body phenomena. A recent proposal with the use of Laguerre-Gaussian lasers enables another fundamental type of coupling between spin and orbital angular momentum (SOAM) in ultracold atoms. We hereby study quantum phases of a realistic Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) with this synt...

Inherent spin angular momentum (SAM) and orbital angular momentum (OAM) which manifest as polarization and spatial degrees of freedom (DOF) of photons, hold a promise of large capability for applications in classical and quantum information processing. To enable these photonic spin and orbital dynamic properties strongly coupled with each other, Poincar\'{e} states have been proposed and offer advantages in data multiplexing, information encryption, precision metrology, and q...

Topological phase imprinting is a well-established technique for deterministic vortex creation in spinor Bose-Einstein condensates of alkali metal atoms. It was recently shown that counter-diabatic quantum control may accelerate vortex creation in comparison to the standard adiabatic protocol and suppress the atom loss due to nonadiabatic transitions. Here we apply this technique, assisted by an optical plug, for vortex pumping to theoretically show that sequential phase impr...

The properties of a special class of correlated many-body wave functions, named rotating vortex clusters (RVCs), that preserve the total angular momentum of a small cloud of trapped rotating bosons are investigated. They have lower energy and provide a superior description for the formation of vortices compared to the mean-field Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) states that break the rotational symmetry. The GP vortex states are shown to be wave packets composed of such RVC states. Our r...