Dynamical Creation of Bosonic Cooper-Like Pairs

Tassilo Keilmann and Juan José Garcia-Ripoll

Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 110406 (2008)

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We propose a scheme to create a metastable state of paired bosonic atoms in an optical lattice. The most salient features of this state are that the wave function of each pair is a Bell state and that the pair size spans half the lattice, similar to fermionic Cooper pairs. This mesoscopic state can be created with a dynamical process that involves crossing a quantum phase transition and which is supported by the symmetries of the physical system. We characterize the final state by means of a measurable two-particle correlator that detects both the presence of the pairs and their size.