Publications

Selected papers from my time at the Joint Quantum Institute (UMD / NIST).

2024

Dynamical formation of a prethermal Bose-Einstein condensate in a Floquet-engineered lattice

Maslek, J., Bracamontes Palma, C. A., Porto, J. V.

Physical Review A

Experimentally realizes an effective Hamiltonian with a continuously adjustable staggered gauge field for weakly interacting bosons in an optical lattice; periodic driving realizes a staggered Φ-flux model with Φ tunable around π or 2π. Studies heating and prethermal relaxation following quenches between Floquet-induced fields and observes Bose recondensation faster than drive heating.

DOI

2022

Realization of a Floquet-Engineered Moat Band for Ultracold Atoms

Bracamontes, C. A., Maslek, J., Porto, J. V.

Physical Review Letters 128, 213401

Engineers a moat-like dispersion in weakly interacting bosons by periodically modulating the amplitude of a checkerboard optical lattice, hybridizing the two lowest bands so single-particle energy has a continuum of nearly degenerate minima along a ring in reciprocal space.

DOI

2019

Parametric Heating in a 2D Periodically Driven Bosonic System: Beyond the Weakly Interacting Regime

Boulier, T., Maslek, J., Bukov, M., Bracamontes, C., Magnan, E., Lellouch, S., Demler, E., Goldman, N., Porto, J. V.

Physical Review X 9, 011047

Experimentally investigates parametric instabilities on the short-time heating of periodically driven bosons in 2D optical lattices with a continuous transverse (tube) degree of freedom. BEC decay is dominated by unstable Bogoliubov modes rather than scattering into higher Floquet bands.

arXiv DOI

2018

A low-steering piezo-driven mirror

Magnan, E., Maslek, J., Bracamontes-Palma, C., Restelli, A., Boulier, T., Porto, J. V.

Review of Scientific Instruments 89, 073110

A piezo-driven translatable mirror with excellent pointing stability, capable of driving at frequencies up to tens of kilohertz, using a tripod of piezo actuators with independently controllable axes.

arXiv DOI

2017

Spontaneous avalanche dephasing in large Rydberg ensembles

Boulier, T., Magnan, E., Bracamontes, C., Maslek, J., Goldschmidt, E. A., Young, J. T., Gorshkov, A. V., Rolston, S. L., Porto, J. V.

Physical Review A 96, 053409

Strong dipole-exchange interactions from spontaneously produced contaminant states can trigger rapid dephasing in many-body Rydberg ensembles — a runaway process where the first contaminant atoms facilitate the creation of more. Has implications for Rydberg-dressing proposals.

arXiv DOI