Cavity-assisted generation of sustainable macroscopic entanglement of ultracold gases

Abstract

Prospects for reaching persistent entanglement between two spatially-separated atomic Bose-Einstein condensates are outlined. The system setup comprises two condensates loaded in an optical lattice, which, in return, is confined within a high-Q optical resonator. The system is driven by an external laser that illuminates the atoms, such that photons can scatter into the cavity. In the superradiant phase, a cavity field is established, and we show that the emerging cavity-mediated interactions between the two condensates is capable of entangling them despite photon losses. This macroscopic atomic entanglement is sustained throughout the time-evolution apart from occasions of sudden deaths/births. Using an auxiliary photon mode and coupling it to a collective quadrature of the two condensates, we demonstrate that the auxiliary mode's squeezing is proportional to the atomic entanglement, and as such, it can serve as a probe field of the macroscopic entanglement.