Controlled insertion of one and two atoms into a high-finesse optical cavity

Entangled quantum states have applications as a model system for strongly correlated many body states, as resource for quantum information processing and as a tool for enhanced precision measurements. Deterministic entanglement schemes create the desired state by transferring the system under the action of a carefully chosen Hamiltonian into an entangled state. The system must follow a unitary evolution, and uncontrolled parasitic interactions with the environment leading to spontaneous decay or partial measurements of the state have to be avoided. The paper present an experiment, on loading a chosen number of Doppler-cooled caesium atoms from a magneto-optical trap into a standing wave opt…