QUANTUM-STATE CONTROL IN OPTICAL LATTICES

We study the means of preparing and coherently manipulating atomic wav e packets in optical lattices, with particular emphasis on alkali-meta l atoms in the far-detuned limit. We derive a general, basis-independe nt expression for the lattice potential operator, and show that its of f-diagonal elements can be tailored to couple the vibrational manifold s of separate magnetic sublevels. Using these couplings one can evolve the state of a trapped atom in a quantum coherent fashion, and prepar e pure quantum states by resolved-sideband Raman cooling. We explore t he use of atoms bound in optical lattices to study quantum tunneling a nd the generation of macroscopic superposition states in a double-well potential. Far-off-resonance optical potentials lend themselves parti cularly well to reservoir engineering via well-controlled fluctuations in the potential, making the atom-lattice system attractive for the s tudy of decoherence and the connection between classical and quantum p hysics.