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arXiv:1906.05615 · Physical Review A

Talbot effect in the presence of interactions

Philipp Höllmer, Jean-Sébastien Bernier, Corinna Kollath, Christian Baals, Bodhaditya Santra, Herwig Ott

Published Dec 5, 2019• 10 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We study both experimentally and theoretically, considering bosonic atoms in a periodic potential, the influence of interactions in a Talbot interferometer. While interactions decrease the contrast of the revivals, we find that over a wide range of interactions the Talbot signal is still proportional to the phase coherence of the matter wave field. Our results confirm that Talbot interferometry can be a useful tool to study finite-range phase correlations in an optical lattice even in the presence of interactions. The relative robustness of the Talbot signal is supported by the first demonstration of the three-dimensional Talbot effect.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.100.063613

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We study both experimentally and theoretically, considering bosonic atoms in a periodic potential, the influence of interactions in a Talbot interferometer. While interactions decrease the contrast of the revivals, we find that over a wide range of interactions the Talbot signal is still proportional to the phase coherence of the matter wave field. Our results confirm that Talbot interferometry can be a useful tool to study finite-range phase correlations in an optical lattice even in the presence of interactions. The relative robustness of the Talbot signal is supported by the first demonstration of the three-dimensional Talbot effect.
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The Talbot interferometer, as a periodic reproduction of momentum distribution in the time domain, finds significant applications in multiple research. The interparticle interactions during the diffraction and interference process introduce numerous many-body physics problems, leading to unconventional interference characteristics. This work investigates both experimentally and theoretically the influence of interaction in a Talbot interferometer with a 6Li2^{6}\mathrm{Li}_{2}6Li2​ molecular Bose-Einstein condensate in a one-dimensional optical lattice, with interaction strength directly tunable via magnetic Feshbach resonance. A clear dependence of the period and amplitude of signal revivals on the interaction strength can be observed. While interactions increase the decay rate of the signal and advance the revivals, we find that over a wide range of interactions, the Talbot interferometer remains highly effective over a certain evolutionary timescale, including the case of fractional Talbot interference. This work provides insight into the interplay between interaction and the coherence properties of a temporal Talbot interference in optical lattices, paving the way for research into quantum interference in strongly interacting systems.
We present a theoretical framework to describe the effects of decoherence on matter waves in Talbot-Lau interferometry. Using a Wigner description of the stationary beam the loss of interference contrast can be calculated in closed form. The formulation includes both the decohering coupling to the environment and the coherent interaction with the grating walls. It facilitates the quantitative distinction of genuine quantum interference from the expectations of classical mechanics. We provide realistic microscopic descriptions of the experimentally relevant interactions in terms of the bulk properties of the particles and show that the treatment is equivalent to solving the corresponding master equation in paraxial approximation.