Quantum interference in the time-of-flight distribution for atomic Bose-Einstein condensates

KL Lee, NB Jørgensen, LJ Wacker +4 more

Michael R. Andrews, C. G. Townsend, H.‐J. Miesner +3 more

Md. Manirul Ali, Hsi‐Sheng Goan

We propose a scheme to experimentally observe matter-wave interference in the time domain, specifically in the arrival time or time-of-flight (TOF) distribution for an atomic Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) Schrödinger-cat state represented by superposition of macroscopically separated wave packets in space. This is in contrast to interference in space at a fixed time observed in the reported BEC experiments. We predict and quantify the quantum interference in the TOF distribution calculated from the modulus of the quantum probability current density (rather than the TOF distributions obtained from a purely classical or semi-classical treatment in many reported experiments). The interference and hence the coherence in the quantum TOF signal disappears in the large-mass limit. Our scheme has the potential to probe the validity of various other theoretical approaches (Muga and Leavens 2000 Phys. Rep. 338 353) of calculating the quantum arrival time distribution.

SUNG MI YOO JANNE RUOSTEKOSKI and JUHA J

Wei Yi, Guin-Dar Lin, L.-M. Duan

We discuss the experimental signal for the Bose-Einstein condensation of cold atoms in an optical lattice at finite temperature. Instead of using the visibility of the interference pattern via time-of-flight imaging, we show that the momentum-space density profile in the first Brillouin zone, in particular its bimodal distribution, provides an unambiguous signal for the Bose-Einstein condensation. We confirm this point with detailed calculations of the change in the atomic momentum distribution across the condensation phase transition, taking into account both the global trapping potential and the atomic interaction effects.

Rasmus Malthe Fiil Andersen, Stine Frederiksen, Laurits Stokholm +4 more

Experiments on Bose-Einstein condensates at finite temperature typically extract the system parameters, such as temperature, atom number, and condensed fraction from time-of-flight images taken after a free expansion time. This paper systematically examines the effect of repulsive interactions between the condensed and thermal atoms in partially condensed clouds on the expansion profile of the thermal cloud. An analytical expression for the expansion can be obtained only if the interactions between the Bose-Einstein condensate and thermal atoms are neglected, resulting in a Bose-enhanced distribution for the thermal component. Here, the deformation of the cloud due to interactions and the effects on estimated parameters are investigated by simulating the expansion using a ballistic approximation. By fitting the simulated expansion profiles with a Bose-enhanced distribution, the errors of using such a fit are estimated, and the results are explained phenomenologically. The simulation was also used as a fitting function for experimental data, showing better agreement of the extracted condensed fraction with the semi-ideal model than results from a Bose-enhanced fit.