The Role of Mutually Attractive Interaction Between Netural Atoms : A Split-Operator Method Analysis

An optical lattice is a crystal of light formed from counter-propagating laser beams in which one can hold and control a nearly perfect array of atoms floating in a vacuum chamber. By changing the shape of the optical lattice, it is possible to split the wavefunctions of individual atoms so that they are put into a quantum superposition of two different locations within the optical lattice at the same time. When there are two atoms at the same location in the optical lattice, their mutual interaction will influence the wave function splitting process. This physics has been studied for pairs of repelling atoms, but I have shown it is possible to create new types of quantum states of matter from atoms that attract each other, a possibility not previously explored. I have designed a computer simulation based on the split-operator method to model the splitting of such pairs of atoms and have demonstrated that this interaction can result in two atom NOON-state superpositions.