Echo spectroscopy and quantum stability of trapped atoms

Abstract

We investigate the dephasing of ultra cold ^{85}Rb atoms trapped in an optical dipole trap and prepared in a coherent superposition of their two hyperfine ground states by interaction with a microwave pulse. We demonstrate that the dephasing, measured as the Ramsey fringe contrast, can be reversed by stimulating a coherence echo with a pi-pulse between the two pi/2 pulses, in analogy to the photon echo. We also demonstrate that the failure of the echo for certain trap parameters is due to dynamics in the trap, and thereby that ''echo spectroscopy'' can be used to study the quantum dynamics in the trap even when more than 10^6 states are thermally populated, and to study the crossover from quantum (where dynamical decoherence is supressed) to classical dynamics.