Vacuum spin squeezing

We investigate the generation of entanglement (spin squeezing) in an optical-transition atomic clock through the coupling to an optical cavity in its vacuum state. We show that if each atom is prepared in a superposition of the ground state and a long-lived electronic excited state, and viewed as a...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Hu, Jiazhong, Chen, Wenlan, Vendeiro, Zachary Michael, Urvoy, Alban Joseph, Braverman, Boris, Vuletic, Vladan
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: American Physical Society 2018
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/114189
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2937-4810
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1521-5365
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0124-8545
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6930-8068
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5193-2711
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9786-0538
Description
Summary:We investigate the generation of entanglement (spin squeezing) in an optical-transition atomic clock through the coupling to an optical cavity in its vacuum state. We show that if each atom is prepared in a superposition of the ground state and a long-lived electronic excited state, and viewed as a spin-1/2 system, then the collective vacuum light shift entangles the atoms, resulting in a squeezed distribution of the ensemble collective spin, without any light applied. This scheme reveals that even an electromagnetic vacuum can constitute a useful resource for entanglement and quantum manipulation. By rotating the spin direction while coupling to the vacuum, the scheme can be extended to implement two-axis twisting resulting in stronger squeezing.