Spin measurements and control of cold atoms using spin-orbit fields

Abstract

We show that by switching on a spin-orbit interaction in a cold-atom system, experiencing a Zeeman-like coupling to an external field, e.g., in a Bose-Einstein condensate, one can simulate a quantum measurement on a precessing spin. Depending on the realization, the measurement can access both the ergodic and the Zeno regimes, while {the time dependence} of the spin's decoherence may vary from a Gaussian to an inverse fractional power law. Back action of the measurement forms time- and coordinate-dependent profiles of the atoms' density, resulting in its translation, spin-dependent fragmentation, and appearance of interference patterns.

2 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Spin-Injection Spectroscopy of a Spin-Orbit Coupled Fermi Gas
• Spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensates
• Effect of Induced Spin-Orbit Coupling for Atoms via Laser Fields
• Manipulating Topological Edge Spins in One-Dimensional Optical Lattice
• Unusual decoherence in qubit measurements with a Bose-Einstein condensate