Impulsively Excited Gravitational Quantum States: Echoes and Time-Resolved Spectroscopy
We theoretically study an impulsively excited quantum bouncer (QB)-a particle bouncing off a surface in the presence of gravity. A pair of time-delayed pulsed excitations is shown to induce a wave-packet echo effect-a partial rephasing of the QB wave function appearing at twice the delay between pul...
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Published in | Physical review letters Vol. 126; no. 17; p. 170403 |
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Main Authors | , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
United States
30.04.2021
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Online Access | Get more information |
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Summary: | We theoretically study an impulsively excited quantum bouncer (QB)-a particle bouncing off a surface in the presence of gravity. A pair of time-delayed pulsed excitations is shown to induce a wave-packet echo effect-a partial rephasing of the QB wave function appearing at twice the delay between pulses. In addition, an appropriately chosen observable [here, the population of the ground gravitational quantum state (GQS)] recorded as a function of the delay is shown to contain the transition frequencies between the GQSs, their populations, and partial phase information about the wave-packet quantum amplitudes. The wave-packet echo effect is a promising candidate method for precision studies of GQSs of ultracold neutrons, atoms, and antiatoms confined in closed gravitational traps. |
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ISSN: | 1079-7114 |
DOI: | 10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.170403 |