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# Towards single-atom detection on a chip

## I Introduction

The subject of matter wave optics is advancing rapidly, driven both by the fundamental interest in quantum systems and by the prospect of new instruments based on the quantum manipulation of neutral atoms. The recent miniaturization of atom traps above microfabricated surfaces hindsreview ; chipreview  has opened the possibility of using neutral atoms to perform quantum information processing (QIP) on a chip. This technology is attractive because it appears robust and scalable, and because trapped neutral atoms can have long coherence times.

Experiments have shown that it is possible to trap, guide, and manipulate cold, neutral atoms in miniaturized magnetic traps above a substrate using either microscopic patterns of permanent magnetization in a film or microfabricated wire structures carrying current or charge. These atom chips can create potentials where atoms are confined strongly enough to consider implementing quantum logic gate schemes tommaso . In the last year, several groups have been able to load atom chip microtraps with Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) BECchip , which may serve as a coherent source of qubits. A next important step for QIP is the detection of individual atoms on a chip with a signal-to-noise ratio better than unity in, say, 10 $`\mu `$s. Here we propose that this can be achieved using very small optical cavities microfabricated on the chip, in which the presence of a single atom produces a sufficient response in the light field to permit detection.

Section II presents a generic mathematical model of atom detection in a cavity. In Secs. III and IV we discuss resonant and off-resonant detection. Section V deals with the forces acting on the atom due to the detection process. We give a numerical simulation of an atom crossing the detection cavity while moving in an atom guide. In Sec. VI we discuss some practical aspects of making optical cavities and waveguides on an atom chip. We conclude in Sec. VII. Appendix A provides details of the particular model cavity used in our analysis.

## II Generic model

In this section we develop a model for a two-level atom coupled to the coherent light field in a microscopic cavity. The picture is essentially one already used to describe experiments in the strong coupling regime of cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) Berman ; Kimble ; Rempe , however, we are interested here in a different region of parameter space. Because the cavities of interest are small, with mirrors of limited reflectivity, the cavity decay rates $`\kappa `$ are many orders of magnitudes faster than those of the best optical resonators. On the other hand, these short cavities can support stable modes that have extremely small waist size ($``$ 1 $`\mu `$m), resulting in very strong atom-cavity coupling $`g`$. In such cavities even a small photon number can be sufficient to saturate the atomic transition, so we need to take nonlinear effects into account. The elements of the atomic density operator $`\rho `$ satisfy the optical Bloch equations

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}\rho _{01}`$ $`=`$ $`(\mathrm{\Gamma }i\mathrm{\Delta }_a)\rho _{01}+g\alpha ^{}(\rho _{00}\rho _{11}),`$ (1)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}\rho _{11}`$ $`=`$ $`2\mathrm{\Gamma }\rho _{11}+g(\alpha ^{}\rho _{10}+\alpha \rho _{01}).`$ (2)
Here, $`2\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the decay rate of the excited atomic state, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_a`$ is the detuning of the driving laser from the atomic resonance, and $`g`$ is the single-photon Rabi frequency at the position of the atom. For simplicity we will assume in the following that the atom sits at an intensity maximum of the light. The light field in the cavity is treated classically, i.e., a coherent state is assumed at all times. The coherent state amplitude $`\alpha `$ obeys the equation of motion

$$\frac{d}{dt}\alpha =(i\mathrm{\Delta }_c\kappa )\alpha +g\rho _{10}+\eta .$$
(3)
Here $`\mathrm{\Delta }_c`$ denotes the detuning of the driving laser from the cavity resonance. The decay rate of the cavity field is $`\kappa \kappa _T+\kappa _{loss}`$, made up of $`\kappa _T`$ due to photons that pass through the cavity mirrors, and $`\kappa _{loss}`$ due to photons that leave the cavity by other processes. The term $`\eta `$ is the cavity pumping rate, related to the pumping laser power by $`\eta =\sqrt{j_{in}\kappa _T}`$, where $`j_{in}`$ is the rate of photons incident on the cavity.

The stationary solutions for the light amplitude in the cavity and for the population of the atomic excited state are

$`\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\eta }{(\kappa +\gamma )i(\mathrm{\Delta }_cU)}},`$ (4)
$`\rho _{11}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g^2N}{\mathrm{\Delta }_a^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }^2+2g^2N}},`$ (5)
where

$`\gamma `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g^2\mathrm{\Gamma }}{\mathrm{\Delta }_a^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }^2+2g^2N}},`$ (6)
$`U`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g^2\mathrm{\Delta }_a}{\mathrm{\Delta }_a^2+\mathrm{\Gamma }^2+2g^2N}},`$ (7)
and $`N=|\alpha |^2`$ is the mean intracavity photon number. When the quantity $`2g^2N`$ is small (large) compared with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^2`$, we say that the atomic saturation is low (high). Note that Eq. (4) defines the stationary field amplitude only implicitly because $`\gamma `$ and $`U`$ depend on $`N`$. Hence this equation normally has to be solved numerically.

The presence of the atom is detected through its effect on the field amplitude $`\alpha `$. This is partly due to the spontaneous scattering, which adds $`\gamma `$ to the cavity damping rate in Eq. (4), and partly to the coherent scattering, which adds $`U`$ to the cavity detuning. With the atom at resonance and unsaturated, the additional damping is $`g^2/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and the ratio of this to the intrinsic cavity damping is $`g^2/(\mathrm{\Gamma }\kappa )`$, the cooperativity parameter of laser theory. This parameter is fundamental to the description of the atom-cavity interaction. When it is much smaller (larger) than unity, we describe the atom-cavity coupling as weak (strong). For a cavity of length $`L`$, it can be expressed as

$$\frac{g^2}{\mathrm{\Gamma }\kappa }=2\frac{\sigma _a}{A}n_{rt}$$
(8)
where $`\sigma _a=3\lambda ^2/(2\pi )`$ is the resonant atomic interaction cross section for light of wavelength $`\lambda `$, $`A`$ is the cross section of the cavity mode at the position of the atom, and $`n_{rt}=c/(4L\kappa )`$ is the average number of round trips of a cavity photon before its decay. (Provided the reflectivity of the mirrors is close to 1, the finesse of the cavity is just $`4\pi n_{rt}`$). This agrees with the naive expectation that the effect of the atom should depend on the fraction of the light within its cross section and should increase linearly with the number of times each photon passes the atom. Note however that Eq. (8) is restricted to beam waist sizes $`A`$ that are more than a few times the cross section $`\sigma _a`$ because it only holds within the dipole and paraxial approximations vanEnk ; domokos02 . Let us emphasize some important scaling properties of this quantity in the following.

(i) If the cavity decay rate is dominated by losses at a fixed number of material interfaces, then the number of round trips $`n_{rt}`$ is independent of the cavity length. It follows from Eq. (8) that if the atom is at the center of the cavity and the waist area $`A`$ is held constant, then $`g^2/(\mathrm{\Gamma }\kappa )`$ is also independent of the cavity length. In this case, if one scales the cavity length and detuning by $`LrL`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_c\mathrm{\Delta }_c/r`$ but keeps the pump laser power and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_a`$ constant, then the detector signal-to-noise ratio (as discussed in the following sections) and the back-action on the atom during the measurement will remain unchanged.

(ii) Equation (8) suggests that, within the paraxial approximation, the beam cross section at the atomic position should be as small as possible to increase the coupling of the atom to the light. However, the beam divergence increases as the waist is made smaller, increasing the diffractive losses and other non-paraxial imperfections and reducing $`n_{rt}`$. Consequently the optimum value for $`A`$ depends on the specific details of the cavity and its losses.

In the following two sections we will discuss two possible ways to detect the presence of an atom by measuring the output light beam. The first is to measure a dip in the output intensity using pump light that is resonant with the atom. The second is to measure the phase shift of the output light using an off-resonant pump. The more general case, in which an atom changes both the amplitude and the phase of the output beam, can be qualitatively understood by considering these two extremes.

## III Resonant atom detection

Let us compare the number of resonant photons transmitted in a time $`\tau `$ through the output mirror to a detector, with and without an atom in the cavity. For a given intra-cavity photon number $`N`$ in a symmetric cavity, the number of photons arriving at the detector is $`N_{out}=N\kappa _T\tau `$. (This can be enhanced to $`2N\kappa _T\tau `$ if the input mirror has much higher reflectivity than the output mirror). We are thus interested in the difference $`N_{out,0}N_{out}`$ where $`N_{out,0}`$ is the output of the empty cavity. This signal must be compared to the quantum noise of the measurement, i.e. to the width $`\sqrt{N_{out}}`$ of the Poissonian photon number distribution of a coherent state. The signal-to-noise ratio of this measurement scheme is therefore

$$S=\frac{N_{out,0}N_{out}}{\sqrt{N_{out}}}.$$
(9)
We will be interested in the regime $`N_{out,0}>1`$. With the cavity and the atom both at resonance, the atomic transition saturates at very low intra-cavity photon number making the difference signal weak, so it is natural to consider using off-resonant excitation at higher intensity. However, it can be shown that $`S`$ is maximum for resonant pumping and we will therefore pursue the idea of using $`\mathrm{\Delta }_c=\mathrm{\Delta }_a=0`$ in the following. Sensitive detection with detuning requires a more sophisticated homodyne technique, which we discuss in Sec. IV.

With $`\mathrm{\Delta }_c=\mathrm{\Delta }_a=0`$, analytical solutions of Eq. (9) can be found for some limiting cases. In the limit of low atomic saturation, where $`2g^2N\mathrm{\Gamma }^2`$, we find

$$S=\sqrt{j_{in}\tau }\frac{g^2}{\kappa \mathrm{\Gamma }}\frac{\kappa _T}{\kappa }\times \{\begin{array}{cc}2\hfill & \\ 1\hfill & \end{array}\text{ for }\left(\frac{g^2}{\kappa \mathrm{\Gamma }}\right)\begin{array}{cc}1\hfill & \\ 1\hfill & \end{array}$$
(10)
Hence the signal-to-noise ratio at low saturation increases with the square root of the incident laser power and integration time, but linearly with the number of photon round trips in the cavity. Losses also degrade the sensitivity through the factor $`\kappa _T/\kappa `$. In the opposite limit of strong saturation, where $`2g^2N\mathrm{\Gamma }^2`$, Eq. (4) yields

$$N=\frac{\eta ^2}{\kappa ^2}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{\kappa }$$
(11)
which gives

$$S=\mathrm{\Gamma }\sqrt{\frac{\tau }{j_{in}}}.$$
(12)
Thus the signal-to-noise ratio decreases with the square root of the intensity when the transition is saturated. This is because the noise due to fluctuations of $`N_{out}`$ approaches $`\sqrt{j_{in}\tau }`$, whereas the number of photons scattered by the atom is limited to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }\tau `$. This result is independent of all the cavity parameters.

In Figures 1 and 2 we show some numerical results based on resonant pumping of the simple cavity described in Appendix A. Figure 1(a) shows the output photon number as a function of the pump power, both with and without an atom in the cavity. With an empty cavity, the output is proportional to the pump power for all parameters. With an atom in the cavity this scaling also holds as long as the atomic saturation is small. For the parameters chosen here the atom-light coupling is strong, i.e., $`g^2\kappa \mathrm{\Gamma }`$, and thus the atom significantly reduces the intra-cavity photon number as long as it is not saturated. For strong atomic saturation we find that $`N_{out,0}`$ and $`N_{out}`$ differ by a constant value, in accordance with the second term of Eq. (11). In Fig. 1(b) we plot the signal-to-noise ratio $`S`$ versus pumping for three different values of $`\kappa _T`$. In each case, $`S`$ increases with $`\sqrt{j_{in}}`$ for weak fields and then decreases in stronger fields in accordance with Eqs. (10) and (12). The optimum sensitivity, observed close to atomic saturation ($`2Ng^2\mathrm{\Gamma }^2)`$, is obtained at a different pump power on each curve. There is also an optimum value for the mirror transmission. We found numerically that this occurs at $`\kappa _T\kappa _{loss}/2`$ with strong coupling and $`\kappa _T\kappa _{loss}`$ with weak coupling. For the parameters given, a single atom can be detected with signal-to-noise ratios of up to 35.

Figure 1(c) shows $`M2\mathrm{\Gamma }\tau \rho _{11}`$, the number of photons spontaneously scattered by the atom during the detection process. With the parameters used here, smaller $`\kappa _T`$ gives smaller $`M`$ at a given pump power, but this depends on the value of $`\kappa _{loss}`$ and is not always so. For example, $`M1/\kappa _T`$ when $`\kappa _{loss}=0`$ and the coupling is weak. In the strongly saturated regime, all curves converge to the limit $`M=\mathrm{\Gamma }\tau `$. This spontaneous scattering causes momentum diffusion of the atom and loss of atomic coherences. For the purpose of atom detection, this does not constitute a problem. However, if one had in mind to use the atom-cavity coupling for reversible, quantum logic operations it would be essential to have little or no spontaneous decay. One would then approach the regime of so-called interaction-free measurements Elitzur ; Kwiat ; Karlsson . Atomic motion will be discussed in more detail in Sec. V. In the weak saturation regime we can use Eq. (10) to express $`M`$ as a function of the signal-to-noise ratio,

$$M=S^2\frac{\kappa }{\kappa _T}\times \{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{g^2}{\kappa \mathrm{\Gamma }}\right)^1\hfill & \\ 2\left(\frac{g^2}{\kappa \mathrm{\Gamma }}\right)^3\hfill & \end{array}\text{ for }\left(\frac{g^2}{\kappa \mathrm{\Gamma }}\right)\begin{array}{cc}1\hfill & \\ 1\hfill & \end{array}$$
(13)
Hence with weak coupling and fixed signal-to-noise ratio, the number of spontaneously scattered photons is inversely proportional to the number of round trips $`n_{rt}`$. This is because the probability of the atom scattering a given photon is directly proportional to $`n_{rt}`$. In the strong coupling regime, on the other hand, the behavior is nonlinear and $`M1/n_{rt}^3`$. Therefore an increase of $`n_{rt}`$ by a factor of 10 would reduce the photon scattering by three orders of magnitude. Of course, the increase of $`n_{rt}`$ also reduces the number of photons in the cavity output. When $`\kappa _{loss}`$ and $`\kappa _T`$ are reduced to $`2\pi \times 0.59`$ MHz and $`j_{in}=2`$ photons/$`\mu `$s, we find $`N_{out,0}=5`$ and $`M=0.47,S=93`$, as shown in the insets of Figs. 1(b) and (c).

Figure 2 is similar to Fig. 1 but with four larger values of $`\kappa _{loss}`$ and with $`\kappa _T`$ set equal to $`\kappa _{loss}/2`$ in each case so as to achieve optimum signal-to-noise ratio. The curves for $`S`$ and $`M`$ as a function of the pump power are generally similar to Fig. 1, but in accordance with the lower cavity finesse, the maximum values of $`S`$ are reduced. These curves correspond approximately to additional losses of 1%, 2%, 4%, and 10% per round trip of the cavity, as described in Appendix A. For the largest loss rate, $`\kappa _{loss}=2\pi \times 86`$ MHz and the maximum value of $`S`$ is 3.75. At this point the number of scattered photons is $`M=86`$, which amounts to a considerable disturbance of the atom. For lower loss rates, on the other hand, large signal-to-noise ratios can be achieved with only few photon scattering events.

The possibility of a large signal-to-noise ratio with few scattered photons makes this cavity-based detection method more attractive than standard resonance fluorescence imaging. Consider a simple resonance fluorescence setup where two light guides are mounted on the chip at $`90`$ degrees to each other. One guides laser light to the atom trapped above the chip, while the second receives scattered photons and conveys them to a photodetector. The second guide collects only a small fraction of the scattered light since its end subtends a small solid angle at the atom. For example, a guide with a 10 $`\mu `$m core mounted 10 $`\mu `$m away from the atom collects $``$ 5% of the total scattered photons. Hence an atom scatters at least 20 photons for every signal photon and there is no possibility of measuring the atom without disturbing it strongly.

## IV Off-resonant detection: homodyne measurement

In the previous section the cavity and the atom were pumped resonantly. We found in that case that atom detection without spontaneous scattering involves a very small cavity output except when the coupling is very strong. One might therefore suspect that the detection scheme could be improved by working with far off-resonant light, using the dispersive interaction to produce an optical phase shift. In this section we investigate that idea. We continue to take $`\mathrm{\Delta }_c=0`$, but now assume a large atom-pump detuning $`\mathrm{\Delta }_a\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ so that the scattering rate $`\gamma `$ is much less than the light shift $`U`$ \[Eqs. (6),(7)\]. In this situation the dominant effect of the atom is to shift the resonance frequency of the cavity, thereby changing the phase of the cavity output but not its amplitude. Equation (4) can then be written as

$$\alpha \frac{\eta }{\kappa +iU}=\frac{\eta }{\kappa }\frac{1}{1i\varphi }\frac{\eta }{\kappa }e^{i\varphi }$$
(14)
where the phase shift

$$\varphi =\frac{U}{\kappa }$$
(15)
is assumed to be $`1`$.

A balanced homodyne detection scheme can measure the phase of the cavity output. The cavity output field is mixed with a strong local oscillator laser field on a 50-50 beam-splitter and the difference of the light intensities in the two beam-splitter output ports is measured. The quantum noise of the signal is determined by the noise of the strong local oscillator, the signal-to-noise ratio being given by

$$S_{hom}=2\sqrt{N_{out}}|\mathrm{sin}\varphi |2\sqrt{N_{out}}\frac{|U|}{\kappa }.$$
(16)
Because of the condition $`|\varphi |1`$, $`N_{out}=N_{out,0}=j_{in}\tau (\kappa _T/\kappa )^2`$. In the limit of low atomic saturation, we find

$$S_{hom}=2\sqrt{j_{in}\tau }\frac{\kappa _T}{\kappa }\frac{g^2}{\mathrm{\Delta }_a\kappa }.$$
(17)
Hence according to Eq. (8), the signal-to-noise ratio increases linearly with $`n_{rt}`$. Note also that $`S_{hom}`$ is $`\mathrm{\Gamma }/\mathrm{\Delta }_a`$ times the $`S`$ of Eq. (10) for resonant detection; with the same pump strength the off-resonant $`S_{hom}`$ is much smaller than the resonant $`S`$. For strong atomic saturation on the other hand, we obtain

$$S_{hom}=\mathrm{\Delta }_a\sqrt{\frac{\tau }{j_{in}}}$$
(18)
which is larger than the corresponding result for resonant detection, Eq. (12), by a factor of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_a/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. Again, this is independent of $`\kappa `$, $`\kappa _T`$, $`A`$, and $`n_{rt}`$.

The number of photons scattered spontaneously by the atom during the interaction time can be expressed in terms of $`S_{hom}`$ as

$$M=S_{hom}^2\frac{\kappa }{\kappa _T}\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{g^2}{\mathrm{\Gamma }\kappa }\right)^1.$$
(19)
Therefore, in order to achieve a certain signal-to-noise ratio, $`M`$ is the same for the homodyne detection scheme as it is in the weak-coupling limit of resonant detection (see Eq. 13). Note that the condition $`|\varphi |1`$ prevents us from reaching the nonlinear regime of strong coupling here. The number of photons transmitted through the cavity during this atom detection is larger by a factor of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_a^2/\mathrm{\Gamma }^2`$ than it is in the resonant detection scheme:

$$N_{out}=\frac{1}{4}S_{hom}^2\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\kappa }{g^2}\right)^2\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_a^2}{\mathrm{\Gamma }^2}.$$
(20)
Figure 3(a) shows the homodyne detection signal-to-noise ratio $`S_{hom}`$ as a function of the pump power. Comparing this with Fig. 1(b), we see that the maximum signal-to-noise ratio for the homodyne detection is smaller but of the same order of magnitude as for the resonant detection scheme. This agrees with the discussion above. The reduction by about a factor of two for the solid curve (lowest cavity loss rate) is due to the fact that we are limited to the weak coupling regime here and therefore do not benefit from the nonlinear effects of the strong coupling seen in Fig. 1(b). Moreover, we find numerically that $`S_{hom}`$ is maximized for $`\kappa _T\kappa _{loss}`$, i.e., for slightly larger mirror transmissions than for the resonant scheme. However, the pump intensity corresponding to maximum $`S_{hom}`$ is much larger because of the large atom-pump detuning $`\mathrm{\Delta }_a`$. Indeed, the main advantage of the homodyne detection scheme is that the signal consists of arbitrarily many photons compared to the few photons in the cavity output for some parameter regimes of Figs. 1 and 2. In Fig. 3(b) we depict the corresponding number $`M`$ of spontaneously scattered photons. Again, $`M`$ is found to be of the same order of magnitude as for the resonant detection scheme. This is because the reduced atom-photon coupling in the far-detuned limit is compensated by the larger number of photons used to achieve a good signal-to-noise ratio. The heating of atomic motion and loss of atom coherence due to photon scattering are therefore similar in both the resonant and the off-resonant detection schemes. It follows from Eq. (19) that a large ratio of $`g^2/(\kappa \mathrm{\Gamma })`$ is needed to make $`S_{hom}>1`$ and $`M<1`$. With $`\kappa _{loss}=\kappa _T=2\pi \times 0.59`$ MHz and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_a=200\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, for example, a pump current of 50 photons/$`\mu `$s gives $`N_{out,0}=125`$ and $`M=0.49`$, $`S_{hom}=4.3`$ as shown in the insets of Fig. 3.

## V Atomic motion

Up to this point we have supposed that the atom is held by the magnetic microtrap at a maximum of the cavity field for the duration of the measurement time $`\tau `$. In this section we show that reliable detection is possible, even when the atom is allowed to move around within the light field. We consider a simple experiment in which the pump laser is continuously on, while single atoms traverse the cavity at random and have to be detected during their limited interaction time with the cavity field. Rubidium atoms trapped in an atom chip waveguide at a temperature of $`1\mu K`$ move at typical thermal velocities of 1cm/s. Such an atom would typically take $`300\mu `$s to cross a $`3\mu `$m cavity mode waist if it were not interacting with the light. This is plenty of time to allow detection, being much longer than the $`\tau =10\mu `$s interaction time assumed in previous sections of this paper. However, the interaction may impart some random momentum kicks to the atom. If this heating is too great, the atom may leave the interaction region before it can be detected, regardless of its initial velocity.

The broadening of the momentum distribution $`\mathrm{\Delta }p`$ over a time $`\tau `$ is related to the momentum diffusion coefficient $`D`$ through the relation $`(\mathrm{\Delta }p)^2=2D\tau `$. For an atom in a standing wave cavity in the limit of weak atomic saturation ($`2g^2N\mathrm{\Gamma }^2`$) we can use the value of $`D`$ given in Refs. cavcool . For simplicity we restrict the following discussions to the resonant case $`\mathrm{\Delta }_a=\mathrm{\Delta }_c=0`$. Thus

$$D=\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mathrm{}k)^2\frac{\eta ^2g^2}{\left[\mathrm{\Gamma }\kappa +g^2\mathrm{cos}^2(kz)\right]^2},$$
(21)
where $`k`$ is the wave vector of the light field, $`g`$ is again the maximum Rabi frequency, and $`z=0`$ is at an antinode of the field. When $`z=0`$, $`2D\tau `$ is equal to $`2\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mathrm{}k)^2\rho _{11}\tau `$, which is just $`(\mathrm{}k)^2M`$. Hence, the momentum distribution of an atom at an antinode broadens by $`\mathrm{\Delta }p=\mathrm{}k\sqrt{M}`$ during the interaction time. At this position, the condition $`M<1`$ for reversible atom-light interaction is also the condition for leaving the motional state of the atom unchanged. Away from the antinodes, however, this is no longer true. For example, $`M=0`$ at a node, while $`D`$ is maximum. In this case, it is coherent scattering of photons between the forward and backward directions in the cavity that gives rise to the momentum diffusion Gordon . However, in general the use of a cavity in atom detection reduces the heating of the atom significantly compared with simple resonance fluorescence detection. Moreover, the counter-propagating fields in a cavity produce a much smaller mean scattering force than a single travelling beam, whose radiation pressure force can expel the atom quickly from the interaction region. In the ultimate limit of very large atom-cavity coupling (“interaction-free” measurement), the atomic motional state is completely unperturbed by the detection.

Let us now take this position dependence into account by simply averaging the results of Sec. III over the position along the cavity axis assuming a flat spatial distribution of the atom. For the spatially averaged signal-to-noise ratio $`\overline{S}`$ at resonance we find

$`\overline{S}`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{j_{in}\tau }{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa _T}{\kappa }}\left[1+{\displaystyle \frac{g^2}{2\kappa \mathrm{\Gamma }}}\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{g^2}{\kappa \mathrm{\Gamma }}}\right)^{1/2}\right]`$ (26)
$`=`$ $`\sqrt{j_{in}\tau }{\displaystyle \frac{g^2}{\kappa \mathrm{\Gamma }}}{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa _T}{\kappa }}\times \{\begin{array}{cc}1\hfill & \\ \frac{1}{2}\hfill & \end{array}\text{ for }\left({\displaystyle \frac{g^2}{\kappa \mathrm{\Gamma }}}\right)\begin{array}{cc}1\hfill & \\ 1\hfill & \end{array}`$
This is exactly half of the maximum value of $`S`$ given by Eq. (10). The corresponding mean number $`\overline{M}`$ of spontaneously scattered photons is

$`\overline{M}`$ $`=`$ $`j_{in}\tau {\displaystyle \frac{\kappa _T}{\kappa }}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\kappa \mathrm{\Gamma }}{g^2}}\right)^{1/2}\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa \mathrm{\Gamma }}{g^2}}\right)^{3/2}`$ (27)
$`=`$ $`j_{in}\tau {\displaystyle \frac{\kappa _T}{\kappa }}\times \{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{g^2}{\kappa \mathrm{\Gamma }}\hfill & \\ \left(\frac{g^2}{\kappa \mathrm{\Gamma }}\right)^{1/2}\hfill & \end{array}\text{ for }\left({\displaystyle \frac{g^2}{\kappa \mathrm{\Gamma }}}\right)\begin{array}{cc}1\hfill & \\ 1\hfill & \end{array}`$ (32)
We note that in the weak coupling limit, the dependence of $`\overline{M}`$ on $`\overline{S}`$ differs from Eq. (13) only by a factor of two, whereas it is qualitatively different in the strong coupling limit. The spatially averaged value $`\overline{D}`$ of the momentum diffusion reads

$$\overline{D}=\frac{(\mathrm{}k)^2}{\tau }\left(1+\frac{g^2}{2\kappa \mathrm{\Gamma }}\right)\overline{M}$$
(33)
and thus the rms momentum change during detection is

$$\mathrm{\Delta }p=\mathrm{}k\sqrt{2\overline{M}\left(1+\frac{g^2}{2\kappa \mathrm{\Gamma }}\right)}.$$
(34)
The corresponding random walk in position leads to a spatial spreading $`\mathrm{\Delta }z`$ of

$$\mathrm{\Delta }z=\sqrt{\frac{2\overline{D}}{m^2}\frac{\tau ^3}{3}}=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }p}{m}\frac{\tau }{\sqrt{3}},$$
(35)
where $`m`$ is the atomic mass. As an example, let us take the parameters of the dotted curve in Fig. 2 with $`j_{in}=20`$ photons/$`\mu `$s. Then $`\overline{S}=5.1`$, $`\overline{M}=25`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }p=9.3\mathrm{}k`$, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }z=320`$ nm. Thus the heating and diffusive motion are relatively small and do not compromise the feasibility of single-atom detection.

We have performed numerical simulations of a simple experiment in which atoms move along a guide perpendicular to the cavity axis and cross the cavity field. The parameters used are $`(g,\mathrm{\Gamma },\kappa _{loss}=\kappa _T)=2\pi \times (12,3,14)`$ MHz, $`j_{in}=10`$ photons/$`\mu `$s, and cavity waist $`w_0=3\mu `$m. The transverse oscillation frequency in the guide is $`2\pi \times 37`$ kHz, the atoms move along the guide with a mean velocity of 0.4 m/s, and the initial temperature of the cloud before interaction with the cavity is 30 $`\mu `$K. Here the motion of the atoms is classical. It is beyond the scope of the present paper to consider single atoms magnetically trapped in the Lamb-Dicke regime or to analyze the effect of the cavity field on a Bose-Einstein condensate.

Figure 4(a) shows the typical temporal evolution of the intra-cavity photon number $`N`$ in one particular realization of the simulation. It is constant as long as there is no atom interacting with the cavity mode, but with the arrival of an atom, $`N`$ exhibits periods of strong reduction according to the position of the atom within the cavity. This curve has been used to simulate the arrival times of individual photons at the photo-detector measuring the cavity output. Detector clicks are indicated by the vertical lines at the bottom of Fig. 4(b) and the scarcity of clicks near time $`t45\mu `$s indicates the presence of the atom. This appears even more clearly in the solid line of Fig. 4(b), which plots the number of photons arriving in an $`8\mu `$s integration window versus time. For comparison, the dashed lines show the corresponding mean number of photons, plus and minus one standard deviation, when there is no atom in the cavity. A simple criterion for the detection of an atom in the cavity would thus be to define a minimum value for $`N_{detect}`$ and infer the presence of an atom whenever the curve drops below that. With the minimum set at 11, we found that this procedure detects 77% of the atoms, while the shot noise of the cavity field produces only 750 false atoms per second. Note that a higher threshold increases the detection efficiency, but simultaneously increases the dark count rate. In practice, a more sophisticated data analysis could provide better discrimination between real detection events and dark counts. On average, each atom makes $`M=28.3`$ spontaneous emissions, a result quite comparable to the simple 1D averages discussed above.

## VI Micro cavity design

It is beyond the scope of this paper to consider the details of specific micro-cavity designs, but it does seem appropriate to make some general remarks about the feasibility of building suitable cavities. In this work, we are not thinking of whispering gallery cavities whisperinggalleryreference , where the light is trapped near the perimeter of a small sphere or disk and atoms may couple to the evanescent field that leaks out. Rather, we have in mind an open resonator in which atoms can have access to the regions of maximum optical field. The lower Q of the open resonator can be compensated by the small waist size of the cavity mode, which we are taking to be a few $`\mu `$m.

A simple cavity of this kind might be made using a pair of optical fibers, each with an integrated Bragg reflector. The two fibers, aimed at each other with a small gap between the ends, form a cavity, see Fig. 5. Of course there are reflections at the fiber ends and losses from the region of the gap as well as absorption in the fiber itself, but such a cavity has the virtue that it is easy to build and its modes are readily analyzed, which we do in appendix A. The damping and coupling parameters used in this work are realistic parameters for such a cavity, as calculated in the appendix. The gap where the atom is placed should be wide enough to avoid long-range van der Waals or Casimir-Polder interactions between the atom and the end of the fiber. These forces become problematic at distances below a few hundred nm Hinds ; Mabuchi .

The cavity could be significantly improved by matching the ends of the fibers to the wavefronts in the gap. With this in mind we have demonstrated a fiber terminated by a microlens that produces a 2$`\mu `$m beam waist 50$`\mu `$m from the end of the fiber, but an analysis of the microlens cavity is beyond the scope of appendix A. GRIN rod lenses also lend themselves to this application. It is also desirable for the cavity to be tunable so that its mode frequencies can be properly chosen relative to the atomic transition of interest. Temperature tuning and piezoelectric tuning are both realistic options. Alternatively, the cavity could be tuned electro-optically using, for example, a material such as lithium niobate (LiNbO<sub>3</sub>), whose refractive index changes by up to 1$`\%`$ in an applied electric field. Ultimately it is of interest to integrate optical structures for atom detection directly into the atom chip. Many dielectric and semiconductor materials combine suitable optical properties with low enough vapor pressure. Waveguides made from SiN or Ta<sub>2</sub>O<sub>5</sub> could be used in the red and near infrared for atoms such as Li and Rb, while GaAs structures would be appropriate for Cs.

## VII Conclusions

In this work we have analyzed the use of optical microcavities for detecting single atoms on an atom chip. We find that even cavities of quite modest $`\kappa `$, in the range of $`2\pi \times 10`$ MHz, can play a useful role provided the waist of the light field is only a few $`\mu `$m. With lower loss, such cavities permit the detection of a single atom while requiring less than 1 photon to be spontaneously scattered. The effect of optical dipole forces can be significant.

Our calculations show that the effect on the atom is approximately the same for resonant and far-detuned pump light if one wants to obtain a fixed signal-to-noise ratio for the same cavity parameters. On resonance, simple monitoring of the cavity output power can be used to detect the atom, but very small photon numbers must be used to achieve maximum signal-to-noise ratio. By contrast, off-resonant detection permits much larger pump power and therefore much larger cavity output, but in this case a more refined homodyne technique must be used to detect the presence of the atom in the cavity. These methods seem promising for the detection of single atoms on an atom chip.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was supported by the European Union (Contract No. IST-1999-11055, ACQUIRE), the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Schwerpunktprogramme “Quanteninformationsverarbeitung”, “Wechselwirkungen in ultrakalten Atom- und Molekülgasen”), the Landesstiftung Baden-Wuerttemberg (Kompetenznetzwerk “Quanteninformationsverarbeitung”), and the British Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. P. D. was supported by the European Commission (Contract No. HPMF-CT-2000-00788).

## Appendix A Modes of a fiber gap cavity

In this appendix we calculate the modes and loss rates of the simple fiber cavity used to illustrate the main part of the paper. The cavity consists of two single-mode fibers mounted on top of the chip and placed on opposite sides of the current carrying wire that forms the magnetic atom trap. The guided atoms pass through a gap of length $`2d`$ between the fibers, as illustrated in Fig. 5. Each fiber contains a highly reflective mirror, e.g. a Bragg reflector, at a distance $`L`$ from its end. The cavity mode confined between these mirrors is concentrated in the fiber cores and in the gap between the fibers. As we show below, it is advantageous to use relatively large core diameters to reduce the energy loss by the mode mismatch between the fibers. The assumption of a single mode fiber thus leads to the requirement of a very small difference of the index of refraction between the fiber core and cladding. In this limit, the mode in the fiber can be well approximated by a transversely polarized field with a Gaussian profile of waist $`w_0`$ Agrawal . Similarly, the paraxial approximation can be applied to the light field in the gap which is therefore Gaussian.

Thus, the electric field of the cavity mode can be written as

$$𝐄(𝐱)=𝐞_\mathrm{𝟎}\times \{\begin{array}{cc}A_{1+}f_{1+}(𝐱)+A_1f_1(𝐱)\hfill & \text{for }z<d,\hfill \\ A_{2+}f_{2+}(𝐱)+A_2f_2(𝐱)\hfill & \text{for }|z|<d,\hfill \\ A_{3+}f_{3+}(𝐱)+A_3f_3(𝐱)\hfill & \text{for }z>d\hfill \end{array}$$
(36)
where $`𝐞_\mathrm{𝟎}`$ is the polarization vector, $`𝐱`$ symbolizes the cylindrical coordinates $`(r,\phi ,z)`$, and

$`f_{1\pm }(𝐱)`$ $`=`$ $`e^{r^2/w_0^2}e^{\pm ik_1(z+d)},`$ (37)
$`f_{3\pm }(𝐱)`$ $`=`$ $`e^{r^2/w_0^2}e^{\pm ik_1(zd)},`$ (38)
are the fiber modes traveling to the right (+) and left (-) within each of the two fibers. In the gap where the atoms are guided, the Gaussian beams emerging from the left (right) fiber and propagating to the right (left) are given by

$`f_{2+}(𝐱)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{w_0}{w(z+d)}}\mathrm{exp}[{\displaystyle \frac{r^2}{w^2(z+d)}}`$
$`+ik_0{\displaystyle \frac{r^2}{2R(z+d)}}+ik_0(z+d)i\eta (z+d)],`$
$`f_2(𝐱)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{w_0}{w(zd)}}\mathrm{exp}[{\displaystyle \frac{r^2}{w^2(zd)}}`$
$`ik_0{\displaystyle \frac{r^2}{2R(zd)}}ik_0(zd)+i\eta (zd)].`$
Here

$`w(z)`$ $`=`$ $`w_0\sqrt{1+(z/z_0)^2},`$
$`R(z)`$ $`=`$ $`z[1+(z_0/z)^2],`$
$`\eta (z)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{arctan}(z/z_0),`$
$`z_0`$ $`=`$ $`\pi w_0^2/\lambda _0.`$ (41)
Because of the divergence of the Gaussian beams in the gap, $`f_{2+}`$ ($`f_2`$) does not exactly match the fiber mode $`f_{3+}`$ ($`f_1`$) at $`z=d`$ ($`z=d`$). Therefore we project $`f_{2\pm }`$ onto $`f_2^{}`$ at these positions and treat the mode mismatch as cavity loss. We find

$`f_2(r,z=d)`$ $`=`$ $`Qf_{2+}^{}(r,z=d)+f_2^{}(r,z=d),`$
$`f_{2+}(r,z=d)`$ $`=`$ $`Qf_2^{}(r,z=d)+f_{2+}^{}(r,z=d),`$
where the coefficient $`Q`$ gives the mode-matched part of the amplitude, while the superscript $``$ indicates the part of the field that is orthogonal to the mode of the fiber and is therefore lost. We find that

$$Q=|Q|e^{i\varphi }=\frac{w_0}{w(d)}e^{ik_02di\eta (d)}.$$
(42)
The phase of $`Q`$ is of first order in $`d/z_0`$, i.e., gap size divided by twice the Rayleigh length, whereas the modulus of $`Q`$ is of second order. We will therefore calculate the cavity modes in perturbation theory in $`d/z_0`$. The first order terms yield a change of the optical path length and hence a change of the resonance frequencies, but still allow for self-consistent, lossless modes, which can then be used in the second order terms to calculate the leading contribution of the cavity loss rate.

Using the continuity equations for the electric field at the fiber-vacuum interface together with the boundary conditions at the mirrors, we obtain the cavity resonance condition

$$d\left(2k_0\frac{1}{z_0}\right)=m\pi 2\mathrm{arctan}\left[\frac{1}{n}\mathrm{tan}(k_1L)\right],$$
(43)
where $`m`$ is an integer number and $`n=k_1/k_0`$ is the effective refractive index of the fiber. We also obtain relations between the electric field amplitudes $`A_{j,\pm }`$, in particular

$`|A_{1+}|`$ $`=`$ $`|A_1|=|A_{3+}|=|A_3|`$ (44)
$`|A_{2+}|`$ $`=`$ $`|A_2|`$ (45)
$`=`$ $`|A_{1+}|\left|{\displaystyle \frac{1+n(1n)e^{2ik_1L}}{2}}\right|.`$
The energy flow in $`z`$ direction in the gap is given by

$$S_z=\frac{\pi w_0^2|A_{2+}|^2}{\mu _0c}$$
(46)
which leads to a loss of energy from the cavity

$$S_{loss}=2S_z(1|Q|^2).$$
(47)
If we divide this by the total energy of the light stored in the fiber cavity, $`E=4n^2ϵ_0\pi Lw_0^2|A_{1+}|^2`$ (neglecting the small energy stored in the gap), we obtain the energy loss rate

$$2\kappa _{gap}=\frac{c}{2L}\left(\frac{d}{z_0}\right)^2\left|\frac{1+n(1n)e^{2ik_1L}}{2n}\right|^2$$
(48)
due to the mode mismatch of the mode coupling through the gap. The loss rate $`\kappa _{loss}`$ is then the sum of $`\kappa _{gap}`$ and any additional loss rates, e.g., due to material absorption. Finally, the maximum single photon Rabi frequency, observed for an atom on the axis of the cavity in the gap, is given by

$$g=\left|1+n(1n)e^{2ik_1L}\right|\sqrt{\frac{3\mathrm{\Gamma }c}{2n^2Lw_0^2k_0^2}}.$$
(49)
As an example let us consider rubidium atoms ($`\lambda _0=780`$ nm) in such a cavity with $`L=20000\lambda _1`$, which yields a node of the electric field at the fiber ends and therefore a large field in the gap, see Eq. (45). The gap size is chosen as $`2d=5.079\mu `$m in accordance with the resonance condition (43). The fiber core diameter is 5$`\mu `$m, the refractive index of the fiber core is $`n_1=1.5`$, and that of the cladding is $`n_2=1.496`$. For these parameters, the corresponding waist is $`w_0=2.92\mu `$m, $`\kappa _{gap}=2\pi \times 6.23`$ MHz and $`g=2\pi \times 12.2`$ MHz. A mirror transmission of $`T=0.01`$ gives $`\kappa _T=Tc/(4nL)=2\pi \times 7.65`$ MHz. This example motivates the choice of parameters used for the figures in this work. A smaller gap of $`2d=1.563\mu `$m gives $`\kappa _{gap}=2\pi \times 0.59`$ MHz, which we use in the insets of Figs. 1 and 3. Note that, as $`L`$ is tunable, any experimental realization error concerning the exact magnitude of $`2d`$ may be compensated in order to once again comply with the resonance condition (43).


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# Field-Induced Transition in the S=1 Antiferromagnetic Chain with Single-Ion Anisotropy in a Transverse Magnetic Field

## I INTRODUCTION

The study on one-dimensional (1D) magnetic systems began in 1930s.1 Although several decades passed, the low-dimensional antiferromagnets have still received much renewed attention owing to both experimental and theoretical efforts in the past few years. On the theoretical aspect, most recent works associated with methods such as finite-size scaling,3 numerical calculations,4,5 Monte Carlo methods,6 analyses of an exactly solvable model,7 etc., have been devoted to verifying Haldanes conjecture2 that the uniform integer spin chain with Heisenberg antiferromagnetic interactions is massive whereas the half-integer spin chain is massless, and much progress towards understanding Haldanes scenario has been made so far.

On the other hand, Haldanes conjecture has been confirmed experimentally in a number of 1D antiferromagnets with spin integer. Quite recently, Honda et al8,9 reported an anomaly of heat capacity on a single crystal sample of the $`S=1`$ quasi-1D Heisenberg antiferromagnet (HAF) $`Ni(C_5H_{14}N_2)_2N_3(PF_6)`$ (briefly NDMAP) in applied magnetic fields, and identified such an anomaly as an indication of a field-induced magnetic long-range ordering. They found an anisotropy in the susceptibility which can be explained as due to the single-ion anisotropy of $`Ni^{2+}`$. The model Hamiltonian they adopted is expressed as

$$H=J\underset{ij}{}𝐒_i𝐒_j+D\underset{i}{}(S_i^z)^2\mu _B\underset{i}{}𝐒_i\stackrel{~}{𝐠}𝐡,$$
(1)
where $`J`$ is the exchange integral (for NDMAP $`J/k_B30K`$), $`D`$ is the single-ion anisotropy constant, $`\mu _B`$ is the Bohr magneton, and $`\stackrel{~}{𝐠}`$ is the $`g`$ tensor with elements $`g_{}`$ and $`g_{}`$ corresponding to the $`g`$ values perpendicular and parallel to the chain c axis, respectively.

Motivated by this nice experiment, we have recently discussed such an 1D system in a longitudinal magnetic field.10 As this magnetic system is expected to reveal quite different behaviors in longitudinal and transverse applied fields, as manifested by experiments8,9, it would be interesting to pay attention to the case in a transverse magnetic field. It is thus the purpose of this present article to report thermodynamic behaviors of this system in the presence of a transverse magnetic field by means of the modified Schwinger boson mean-field theory (SBMFT). As is well known, the SBMFT works well for the 1D HAF with integer spins, which can include the effects of quantum fluctuations self-consistently in the large-$`N`$ saddle point, where $`N`$ is the quasiparticle degeneracy. The Schwinger boson approach is actually a large-$`N`$ formulation, and the large-$`N`$ limit of Hamiltonian is taken with $`\kappa =n_b/N`$ fixed12,13,14 with the constraint $`b^+b=n_b`$ at each site for Schwinger bosons. For large values of $`\kappa `$ the system is magnetically ordered in high dimensions, while the quantum disordered state appears at small $`\kappa `$. In the presence of a magnetic field one may expect the degeneracy to be lifted and $`N`$ could be smaller than in the absence of a magnetic field. By noting that the degeneracy is for Schwinger boson quasiparticles, the SBMFT still works even if the applied magnetic field lifts some degeneracies, because even for small $`N`$ it is known that the SBMFT can produce fair results for the 1D HAF with integer spin (see, e.g. Ref.). Our so-obtained results would thus be reliable at the mean-field level.

The outline of this paper is as follows. In next section, the thermodynamic quantities such as the specific heat and the transverse susceptibility will be calculated based on the framework of the SBMFT. The detail formalism of SBMFT for this present system is collected in the Appendix. Finally, a summary and discussion will be presented.

## II THERMODYNAMIC PROPERTIES AT FINITE TEMPERATURES

Based on the self-consistent equations developed in the Appendix, we may obtain the static uniform transverse susceptibility (along $`x`$ direction) per site by

$`\chi /2N`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mu _B^2g_{}^2}{2N}}{\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}\{\beta {\displaystyle \frac{U^2(k)}{1U^2(k)}}\{[n_\alpha (k)+1]n_\alpha (k)+[n_\beta (k)+1]n_\beta (k)\}`$ (3)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{(1U^2(k))^{\frac{3}{2}}}{2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}}}(n_\alpha (k)+n_\beta (k)+1)\},`$
where

$$U(k)=\eta \gamma _k\frac{\mu _Bg_{}h_x}{2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}},\text{ }n_{\alpha (\beta )}(k)=\frac{1}{e^{\beta E_k^{\alpha (\beta )}}1}.$$
(4)
The specific heat per site, $`C/2N`$, can be easily obtained by $`\frac{C(T)}{2N}=\frac{1}{2N}\frac{E}{T}`$, where $`E`$ is the internal energy. For convenience in numerical calculations, we shall set $`J=1`$ as energy scale, $`g_{}=2.17`$ (from Ref. ) and $`k_B=1`$ hereafter.

### A Specific Heat

The temperature dependence of the specific heat ($`C_v`$) for different fields at $`D=0`$ is shown as in Fig. 1. One may see that the specific heat increases with increasing field at low temperature, whereas it decreases with increasing field at high temperature. At a given magnetic field $`0<h_x<0.9`$, there is an anomaly clearly observed in the curve of $`C_v`$ at a temperature $`T_c`$. If the transverse field is taken off, the anomaly disappears. Such an anomaly might be an indicative of field-induced transition. Recall that in the presence of a longitudinal field, the system shows no any anomaly in the curve of $`C_v`$ observed.10 In this sense, this kind of field-induced transition appears only when a transverse magnetic field is applied to the system within the framework of the SBMFT. By noting that the anomalies were also observed in experiments for different longitudinal fields at almost the same temperature, although with smaller peaks than applying the transverse fields. The fact that our SBMFT cannot produce this result shows that there might be some limitations for this approach. With increasing the magnetic field, the temperature $`T_c`$ where the field-induced transition occurs, moves to low temperature side. Combining the results of susceptibility (see below), we may identify the transition as one from a disordered phase to a spin-polarized phase. We could understand this phenomenon as a consequence of the broken of the $`Z_2`$ symmetry.16 When the external field is applied along the $`z`$-axis, the $`XY`$ symmetry is retained. On the contrary, when the magnetic field is applied perpendicularly to the $`z`$-axis, the $`XY`$ symmetry is broken and an Ising anisotropy is produced (See, e.g. Ref.  and references therein). At a given field an anomaly of specific heat will thus appear at a given temperature due to the $`Z_2`$ symmetry breaking, which is an indicative of a field-induced transition from a disordered phase to a spin-polarized phase as the transverse field tends to align spins perpendicular to the easy axis. Here we would like to point out that the anomaly we observed is different from the usual broad peak of $`C_v`$ which appears at temperature $`T_p`$ whatever the magnetic field is present or absent, while $`T_p`$ decreases with increasing the field. Since the limitation of the approximation we cannot find such a broad peak of $`C_v`$ within the frame of SBMFT, as discussed in a number of references. This may be a shortcoming of the SBMFT. However, at high temperature we have observed the specific heat decreases with increasing the field, which shows a correct trend for $`S=1`$ AFM chain. On the other hand, we note that the anomalies in the curves of $`C_v`$ were observed experimentally for NDMAP at high magnetic fields. Our calculated result is in qualitatively agreement with this experimental obervation8 if we make a rescale for the field as $`h_x(h_ch_x)`$,19 where $`h_c`$ is a critical field at which the anomaly of specific heat disappears at zero temperature. In the present case $`h_c0.90`$. With this field rescaling, we find that the temperature where the anamoly occurs increases with the field, consistent with the experimental observation. We would like to point out that we could not compare the experimental data directly with our calculated results, because the experimental data8 include the contribution of the lattice which is not given. However, one may see that the results obtained on the basis of the SBMFT in the present fashion might capture qualitatively some experimental features of the $`S=1`$ HAF chain in the presence of a transverse field. Besides, our SBMFT result seems also to be in qualitatively agreement with the upper phase boundary of the exact diagonalization of finite chains, although the latter results are extracted from the staggered susceptibility.16

We have also investigated the effect of the single-ion anisotropy on the specific heat in a given field $`h_x=0.3`$, as shown in Fig. 2. The result shows that the anisotropy does not have so much effect on the specific heat, and it only causes slight changes in the peaks and dips of $`C_v.`$ It appears that $`C_v`$ increases, though small, with increasing $`D`$, as indicated in the inset of Fig. 2. One may notice that this result is very different from the case in the presence of a longitudinal applied field, where the effect of the single-ion anisotropy on specific heat is various.10 This result is readily understandable, because the single-ion anisotropy is XY-like, and if the magnetic field is applied perpendicular to the $`z`$-axis, the single-ion anisotropy would have no much effect on the physical obervables, as illustrated in the present case, while such an anisotropy would matter if the magnetic field is applied along the $`z`$-axis, as manifested in Ref..

The external field dependence of the specific heat for different temperatures at $`D=1.0`$ is depicted in Fig. 3. It is shown that at a given temperature the specific heat increases with increasing field, and after arriving at a maximum, decreases faster and then slow with increasing field. One may see again that there are anomalies in the curves of the specific heat versus the external field. It is interesting to note that the magnetic field at which the specific heat shows a peak at a given temperature is consistent with those found in Fig. 1. For a given temperature, $`C_v(h_x)`$ behaves as $`C_v(h_x)c_0(T)+c_1(T)h_x^{1/2}+c_2(T)h_x+c_3(T)h_x^{3/2}`$, where $`c_i`$ ($`i=0,1,2,3`$ ) are temperature-dependent coefficients. For example, at $`T=0.5`$ the fitting results give $`c_0=0.1643,c_1=0.7013,c_2=1.2047,c_3=0.468.`$ At $`h_x0,C(T=0.5)`$ is $`0.1643`$. It can be seen that after making a field recaling $`h_xh_ch_x`$ one may find that the position of the anomaly of the specific heat moves to high field side with increasing temperature.

### B Transverse Susceptibility

The temperature dependence of susceptibility ($`\chi `$) at $`D=1.0`$ in different fields is depicted in Fig. 4. It is observed that the susceptibility shows a broad peak at low temperature in low fields (in our case $`h_x<0.485`$), which is a characteristic of $`S=1`$ Heisenberg AFM chain, and it goes to zero at $`T0`$ for the field less than $`h_{c1}=0.485`$, suggesting that the system is in a Haldane gapped phase in this regime. For $`0.485<h_x<0.9,`$ we found the susceptibility of this 1D spin system goes to a finite value as $`T`$ tends to zero, implying that in this regime the system is in a Luttinger liquid (LL) phase. It is clear that there exists a transition from the Haldane gapped phase to the LL phase at $`h_x=h_{c1}`$ at which the excited gap closes. The result agrees with that of the effective-field theory and size scaling analysis18 with the finite chain calculation19,20, which indicates that the field-induced transition occurs from the disordered ground state to the gapless Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid phase at some critical external field $`h_{c1}`$. In addition, a phase boundary in field ($`h_{c1}`$)-temperature ($`T`$) plane is thus obtained by observing the variation of susceptibility. On the other hand, for $`h_{c1}<h<h_{c2}`$, the gap vanishes and we find a range of linear $`T`$ dependence for the specific heat, which is also a characteristic for the LL phase.21,22 For the higher field ($`h_xh_{c2}=0.9`$) the susceptibility diverges and persists up to saturation as temperature tends to zero, showing that the system now enters into a spin-polarized phase. Thus, there must be a transition from the LL phase to a spin-polarized phase at $`h_x=h_{c2}`$. However, it is not easy to determine $`h_{c2}`$ according to the divergence of the susceptibility. Fortunately, we observed that there is a curvature change in the curves of $`\chi `$ versus temperature for different fields, as enlarged in the inset of Fig. 4. Although the curvature change in the susceptibility itself is not an indication of a phase transition, by observing that the susceptibility shows different behaviors at low temperatures in different phases, one could identify when the system enters into the spin-polarized phase from the LL phase by observing the curvature change of the susceptibility. The positions of curvature change are the same as the positions in curves of the specific heat at which the specific heat exhibits an anomaly, which gives the estimation of $`h_{c2}`$. In other words, at $`h_{c2}`$ the specific heat shows anomalies, indicating a transition occurs at $`h_{c2}`$. Note that the curvature-changing position moves to low temperature side with increasing field. It can be observed that the behavior of susceptibility in the transverse field is very different from the results in the longitudinal field,10 where there is no curvature-changing observed in the curves of $`\chi `$ versus temperature.

The effect of the single-ion anisotropy on susceptibility is also investigated. It is found that the single-ion anisotropy does not change so much the shape and the magnitude of susceptibility. Though the effect on susceptibility is not obvious, it can cause a small decreasing of $`\chi `$ at a given temperature and a given field. One can obtain a schematic phase diagram in field ($`h_x`$)-anisotropy ($`D`$) plane by observing the variation of susceptibility, as shown in Fig. 5. The phase boundary is characterized by closure of the excited gap. The system is in a gapless phase above the boundary and is in a gapped Haldane phase below the boundary. One may note that the change of $`h_x`$ with $`D`$ in the diagram is only a few percent. Whatever the anisotropy is strong or weak, the system is always in the Haldane phase if $`h_x`$ is less than $`0.45`$. When $`D`$ is larger, the external field required to drive the system into the gapless phase becomes larger. For example, at $`D=0,`$ the critical field is $`0.45`$, and at $`D=1.6,`$ it becomes $`0.50`$. It is found that the critical field in the case of the transverse field is larger than that in the longitudinal field. For instance, at $`D=0`$ and $`T0`$ the critical field in the transverse case is $`0.45`$, while it is $`0.155`$ in the longitudinal case. Our result is in agreement with the estimation on the critical field at $`D=0`$ on the basis of exact diagonalization of finite chains,16 and is qualitatively consistent with the experimental extrapolation in NDMAP8.

Fig. 6 gives the field-dependence of susceptibility at $`D=1.0`$ at different temperatures. It is observed that for $`h_x<0.9`$ the behavior of $`\chi `$ versus transverse field at low temperature is quite different from that at high temperature. The positions of curvature change in $`\chi `$ are consistent with our observation for the anomalies in specific heat. We also observed that the single-ion anisotropy does not have much effect on the behavior of the susceptibility versus transverse field.

## III SUMMARY and DISCUSSION

By summarizing the above results on the specific heat and the susceptibility, we may propose a schematic phase diagram in field ($`h_x`$)-temperature ($`T`$) plane within the framework of SBMFT. Since the anisotropy does not have much effect on the behavior of thermodynamic obervables of the system under interest, without loss of generality we present the phase diagram for $`D=0`$ as an example, as shown in Fig. 7. When the transverse field is less than $`h_{c1}`$, the system should be in a gapped phase (Haldane phase). At $`h_x=h_{c1}`$ the gap closes. The lower boundary for $`h_{c1}`$ is determined by observing the closure of spin gap in the curves of the susceptibility as a function of the applied transverse field and temperature. For $`<h_x<h_{c2}`$, the system might be in a Luttinger liquid phase, characterized by finite values of the susceptibility at $`T0`$. When $`h_x>h_{c2}`$, the system goes into a spin-polarized phase. At $`h_x=h_{c2}`$, the anomalies in the curves of the specific heat as well as the susceptibility appear. It is interesting to observe that the shape of the LL phase becomes more symmetric for $`D`$ nonzero. It seems that our proposed phase diagram based on the SBMFT is somewhat different from the results of exact diagonalization on finite chains.16 In the phase diagram presented in Ref.  the lower and upper boundaries of the antiferromagnetic ordered phase are given by $`h_{c1}`$ and $`h_{c2}`$, which are determined by the staggered susceptibility. While in our proposed phase diagram, $`h_{c1}`$ and $`h_{c2}`$ are determined by observing the behaviors of the uniform transverse susceptibility as well as the specific heat. Considering the mean-field feature of our method, we cannot determine with accuracy whether a small region of an ordered phase at very low temperatures ($`T<0.1`$) in the LL phase exists, as the susceptibility we calculated is not a staggered but uniform one. In this sense, our proposed phase diagram is not incompartible with that of Ref., which can be viewed as a complement for finite-size calculations. Therefore, it could be better to understand the thermodynamic properties of this 1D spin system in the presence of the applied field based on a combination of our SBMFT results and finite-size calculations.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work is supported in part by the National Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 90103023 and 10104015), the State Key Project for Fundamental Research in China, and by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

## A Formalism of the SBMFT

In this Appendix, we shall present the detail derivation of the self-consistent equations based on the SBMFT. These equations are applied to get the thermodynamic properties of the system.

We suppose that the system in Eq.(1) with $`J>0`$ is defined on a bipartite lattice with sublattices A and B. For sublattice A, we denote the spin operator $`S_i^A`$ by Schwinger bosons $`a_i`$ and $`b_i`$ (see Ref. ):

$$\begin{array}{c}S_{i,+}^A=a_i^+b_i^+,S_{i,}^A=a_ib_i,\\ S_{i,z}^A=\frac{1}{2}(a_i^+a_i+b_i^+b_i+1),\end{array}\stackrel{}{iA}$$
(A1)
satisfying the constraint $`S_i^A=(a_i^+a_i+b_i^+b_i)`$ for each site on sublattice A, and for sublattice B

$$\begin{array}{c}\hfill S_{j,+}^B=a_jb_j,S_{j,}^B=a_j^+b_j^+\\ \hfill S_{j,z}^B=\frac{1}{2}(b_j^+b_j+a_j^+a_j+1)\end{array}\stackrel{}{jB}$$
(A2)
with $`S_j^B=(a_j^+a_j+b_j^+b_j)`$ for each site on sublattice B. The bosons $`\{a\}`$ and {$`b\}`$ obey the standard commutation relations. Although one may note that the definitions in Eqs. (2) and (3) introduced in Ref.  are slightly different from the standard form, we find that such a form is quite convenient for our purpose. On account of the definitions with constraints, the Hamiltonian (1) for $`S=1`$ can be rewritten as

$$H=H_0+H_D+H_{ex},$$
(A3)
$$\begin{array}{c}H_0=J_{i,j}𝐒_i𝐒_j=2J_{i=1,\delta }A_{i,i+\delta }^+A_{i,i+\delta }\\ J_{i=1,\delta }a_i^+a_ia_{i+\delta }^+a_{i+\delta }+J_{i=1,\delta }a_i^+a_i,\end{array}$$
(A4)
$$H_D=D\underset{i=1}{}(S_i^z)^2=\frac{3D}{4}\underset{i=1}{}(a_i^+a_i+b_i^+b_i)+DN/2,$$
(A5)
$$H_{ex}=\mu _B\underset{i}{}[g_{}(S_i^xh_x+S_i^yh_y)+g_{}S_i^zh_z],$$
(A6)
where $`A_{i,i+\delta }=\frac{1}{2}(a_i^+b_{i+\delta }^++b_ia_{i+\delta })`$, and $`2N`$ is the total number of sites. To implement the constraints $`_{iA}(a_i^+a_i+b_i^+b_i)=S^A`$ and $`_{jB}(a_j^+a_j+b_j^+b_j)=S^B`$ where $`S^{A(B)}`$ denotes the total spin of sublattice A(B), we should introduce two kinds of Lagrangian multipliers $`\lambda _i^A`$ and $`\lambda _j^B`$ into the system. At the mean-field level, for the sake of simplicity we may take the average value of the bond operator $`<A_{i,i+\delta }>=A`$ to be uniform and static, and so are $`<\lambda _i^A>=`$ $`\lambda ^A`$ and $`<\lambda _j^B>=\lambda ^B`$.

The mean-field Hamiltonian in momentum space reads

$$H=H_0+H_D+H_{ex},$$
(A7)
$$\begin{array}{c}H_0=J_k\{A^{}(a_k^+b_k^++b_ka_k)z\gamma _k^{}+(b_ka_k+a_k^+b_k^+)z\gamma _kA\}\\ J_k(<\stackrel{~}{n}_{i+\delta ,a}>a_k^+a_k+<\stackrel{~}{n}_{i,a}>a_k^+a_k)\\ +J_ka_k^+a_k+\lambda ^A_k[(a_k^+a_k+b_k^+b_k)S^A]\\ +\lambda ^B_k[(a_k^+a_k+b_k^+b_k)S^B]\\ +2JzNA^{}A+JNz<\stackrel{~}{n}_{i,a}><\stackrel{~}{n}_{i+1,a}>,\end{array}$$
(A8)
$$H_D=\frac{3D}{4}\underset{i=1}{}(a_k^+a_k+b_k^+b_k)+DN/2,$$
(A9)
$$H_{ex}=\frac{1}{2}\mu _B\underset{k}{}[g_{}h_x(a_k^+b_k^++b_ka_k)+\frac{1}{j}g_{}h_y(a_k^+b_k^+a_kb_k)+g_{}h_z(a_k^+a_k+b_k^+b_k+1)],$$
(A10)
where $`z`$ is the number of nearest neighbor sites, $`j`$ is a complex number, and $`\gamma _k=\frac{1}{z}_\delta e^{ik\delta }=\mathrm{cos}k`$. The sum over $`k`$ is restricted to the reduced first Brillouin zone.

Utilizing the Bogoliubov transformation

$$a_k=\mathrm{cosh}\theta _k\alpha _k+\mathrm{sinh}\theta _k\beta _k^+,b_k=\mathrm{sinh}\theta _k\alpha _k^++\mathrm{cosh}\theta _k\beta _k,$$
(A11)
with $`\theta `$ given by

$$tanh2\theta =\frac{\mu _Bg_{}h_x+Re(2JzA\gamma _k)}{2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{^{}}},$$
(A12)
with

$`2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{^{}}=(\lambda ^A+\lambda ^B)B/2+3D/4,BJ[(<\stackrel{~}{n}_{i+1,a}>+<\stackrel{~}{n}_{i,a}>)1)],`$we obtain the energy spectrum of the system in the presence of a transverse external field $`h_{ex}=(h_x,0,0)`$:

$$E_k^\alpha =\sqrt{(2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{^{}})^2(2Re\left|JzA\gamma _k\right|\mu _Bg_{}h_x)^2}B/2,$$
(A13)
$$E_k^\beta =\sqrt{(2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{^{}})^2(2Re\left|JzA\gamma _k\right|\mu _Bg_{}h_x)^2}+B/2.$$
(A14)
The free energy per site takes the form of

$$\begin{array}{c}\frac{F}{2N}=\frac{1}{2N\beta }_k\{\mathrm{ln}[2\mathrm{sinh}\frac{\beta }{2}(E_k^\alpha )]+\mathrm{ln}[2\mathrm{sinh}\frac{\beta }{2}(E_k^\beta )]\}\\ +JzA^{}A+B/4(S^A/2+1/2)\lambda ^A\lambda ^B(S^B/2+1/2)\\ D/2+Jz<\stackrel{~}{n}_{i,a}><\stackrel{~}{n}_{i+1,a}>/2.\end{array}$$
(A15)
The mean-field self-consistent equations can be obtained by minimizing the free energy. Without loss of generality, we may set $`\lambda ^A=\lambda ^B`$. Then, we perform $`\delta F/\delta \lambda ^A=0`$, $`\delta F/\delta A^{}=0`$, $`\delta F/\delta <\stackrel{~}{n}_{i+\delta ,a}>=0`$ and $`\delta F/\delta <\stackrel{~}{n}_{i,a}>=0`$. Rescale the parameters $`(\lambda ^A,`$ $`\lambda ^B,A,`$ $`\beta )`$ $`(\mathrm{\Lambda },\eta ,\kappa ):`$

$$\eta =\frac{JAz}{\mathrm{\Lambda }^{^{}}},\text{ }\beta =\frac{4\kappa }{z}.$$
(A16)
Then, the angle in the Bogoliubov transformation can be expressed in a compact form

$$\mathrm{cosh}2\theta _k=\frac{1}{\sqrt{1(\eta \gamma _k\frac{\mu _Bg_{}h_x}{2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}})^2}},\mathrm{sinh}2\theta _k=\frac{\frac{\mu _Bg_{}h_x}{2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}}+\eta \gamma _k}{\sqrt{1(\eta \gamma _k\frac{\mu _Bg_{}h_x}{2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}})^2}}.$$
(A17)
The self-consistent equations become

$$\begin{array}{c}(S^A+S^B)/2+1=\frac{1}{2N}_k\frac{1}{\sqrt{1(\eta \gamma _k\frac{\mu _Bg_{}h_x}{2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}})^2}}\{\mathrm{coth}\kappa (2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}\sqrt{1(\eta \gamma _k\frac{\mu _Bg_{}h_x}{2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}})^2}+B/2)\\ +\mathrm{coth}\kappa (2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}\sqrt{1(\eta \gamma _k\frac{\mu _Bg_{}h_x}{2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}})^2}B/2)\},\end{array}$$
(A18)
$$\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}=\frac{1}{2N}_k\frac{J\gamma _k}{\eta }\frac{\frac{\mu _Bg_{}h_x}{2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}}+\eta \gamma _k}{\sqrt{1(\eta \gamma _k\frac{\mu _Bg_{}h_x}{2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}})^2}}\{\mathrm{coth}\kappa (2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}\sqrt{1(\eta \gamma _k\frac{\mu _Bg_{}h_x}{2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}})^2}+B/2)\\ +\mathrm{coth}\kappa (2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}\sqrt{1(\eta \gamma _k\frac{\mu _Bg_{}h_x}{2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}})^2}B/2)\},\end{array}$$
(A19)
$$\begin{array}{c}4<\stackrel{~}{n}_{i,a}>+1=\\ \frac{1}{2N}_k\{[\frac{1}{\sqrt{1(\eta \gamma _k\frac{\mu _Bg_{}h_x}{2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}})^2}}1]\mathrm{coth}\kappa (2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}\sqrt{1(\eta \gamma _k\frac{\mu _Bg_{}h_x}{2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}})^2}+B/2)\\ +[\frac{1}{\sqrt{1(\eta \gamma _k\frac{\mu _Bg_{}h_x}{2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}})^2}}1]\mathrm{coth}\kappa (2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}\sqrt{1(\eta \gamma _k\frac{\mu _Bg_{}h_x}{2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}})^2}B/2)\},\end{array}$$
(A20)
$$\begin{array}{c}4<\stackrel{~}{n}_{i+1,a}>+1=\\ \frac{1}{2N}_k\{[\frac{1}{\sqrt{1(\eta \gamma _k\frac{\mu _Bg_{}h_x}{2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}})^2}}+1]\mathrm{coth}\kappa (2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}\sqrt{1(\eta \gamma _k\frac{\mu _Bg_{}h_x}{2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}})^2}B/2)\\ +[\frac{1}{\sqrt{1(\eta \gamma _k\frac{\mu _Bg_{}h_x}{2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}})^2}}1]\mathrm{coth}\kappa (2\mathrm{\Lambda }^{}\sqrt{1(\eta \gamma _k\frac{\mu _Bg_{}h_x}{\mathrm{\Lambda }})^2}+B/2)\}.\end{array}$$
(A21)
As is easily seen, the aforementioned equations are highly coupled, and it is not possible to get useful analytic results. They are only solved numerically to get the relavant thermodynamic quantities.

FIGURE CAPTIONS

Fig. 1 The temperature dependence of the specific heat at $`D=0`$ for different transverse fields.

Fig. 2 The temperature dependence of the specific heat for different anisotropies at $`h_x=0.3`$. Inset: The enlarged part of the specific heat versus temperature for different anisotropies at $`h_x=0.3`$.

Fig. 3 The $`h_x`$-dependence of the specific heat at $`D=1.0`$ for different temperatures.

Fig. 4 The temperature dependence of the susceptibility at $`D=1.0`$ for different transverse fields. Inset: The enlarged part of the susceptibility versus temperature at $`D=1.0`$ for different transverse fields.

Fig. 5 Schematic phase diagram in $`h_xD`$ plane. The solid line is the phase boundary on which the gap closes.

Fig. 6 The $`h_x`$-dependence of the susceptibility at $`D=1.0`$ for different temperatures.

Fig. 7 Schematic phase diagram in $`h_xT`$ plane.