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Spin Self-Rephasing and Very Long Coherence Times in a Trapped Atomic Ensemble

2010; American Physical Society; Volume: 105; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1103/physrevlett.105.020401

1092-0145

C. Deutsch, F. Ramírez-Martínez, Clément Lacroûte, Friedemann Reinhard, T. Schneider, Jean-Noël Fuchs, Frédéric Piéchon, Franck Laloë, Jakob Reichel, P. Rosenbusch,

Quantum optics and atomic interactions

We perform Ramsey spectroscopy on the ground state of ultra-cold 87Rb atoms magnetically trapped on a chip in the Knudsen regime. Field inhomogeneities over the sample should limit the 1/e contrast decay time to about 3 s, while decay times of 58 s are actually observed. We explain this surprising result by a spin self-rephasing mechanism induced by the identical spin rotation effect originating from particle indistinguishability. We propose a theory of this synchronization mechanism and obtain good agreement with the experimental observations. The effect is general and susceptible to appear in other physical systems.