Shortcuts and banked curves: Fast but high fidelity transport of ultracold atoms

Abstract

Atomtronics is an emerging field in the area of quantum information and computation, which deals with matter-wave circuits of ultracold atoms. Instead of electrons and holes, the information carriers are neutral atoms, a feature that would allow for reduced decoherence rates in the circuit. A trapped Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) would be the most ideal quantum system for atomtronic circuits, as it has a high degree of quantum coherence, and its relatively macroscopic size allows for manipulation and control using optical or magnetic fields. Unfortunately, BECs are fragile systems, and their manipulation (such as spatial transport) must satisfy quantum adiabatic conditions. As such, there is the undesirable tradeoff between the experimentally realizable degree of coherence and execution times of atomtronic processes for trapped BECs. In this talk, I will discuss shortcuts-to-adiabaticity that will allow for fast spatial transport of a trapped BEC while maintaining its coherence properties. I will present my group's plan for implementing this in experiment using painted potentials, and the possibility of its use on a matter wave interferometer. I will also briefly present a scheme that allows for fast transport along curved trajectories, which are crucial in the development of compact atomtronic devices.