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Physical Review Letters

Atomic Wave-Function Imaging via Optical Coherence

C. Schnurr, T. A. Savard, L. J. Wang, John E. Thomas

Published Feb 20, 1995• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We demonstrate optical methods for studying the slowly varying part of atomic center of mass wave functions, i.e., with thermal plane-wave factors removed. Utilizing continuous spatial photon echo fields and a simple lens system, the techniques determine the spatial distribution of the slowly varying wave function when the echo field is measured in the image plane. The corresponding momentum space distribution is obtained with high momentum resolution (0.1% of the photon momentum) using Fourier transform optics.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.74.1331

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We demonstrate optical methods for studying the slowly varying part of atomic center of mass wave functions, i.e., with thermal plane-wave factors removed. Utilizing continuous spatial photon echo fields and a simple lens system, the techniques determine the spatial distribution of the slowly varying wave function when the echo field is measured in the image plane. The corresponding momentum space distribution is obtained with high momentum resolution (0.1% of the photon momentum) using Fourier transform optics.
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We present a simple spectroscopic method based on Autler-Townes spectroscopy to determine the center-of-mass atomic wave function. The detection of spontaneously emitted photons from a three-level atom, in which two upper levels are driven by a classical standing light, yields information about the position and momentum distribution of the atom [A. M. Herkommer, W. P. Schleich, and M. S. Zubairy, J. Mod. Opt. 44,44,44, 2507 (1997)]. In this paper, we show that both the amplitude and phase information of the center-of-mass atomic wave function can be obtained from these distributions after a series of conditional measurements on the atom and the emitted photon.
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