Fortschritte der Physik
Cover Picture: Fortschritte der Physik 9 / 2009
Abstract
The cover page of 2009 shows high-resolution interference “quantum carpet” patterns for the momentum wave function of an interacting Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). As time progresses (from back to front), the many-body mean field interaction of the BEC first leads to a broadening of the wave function, but then also to a time-varying interference structure by inducing site-dependent nonlinear phase shifts when the BEC is confined in a spatially periodic potential. Imaging the wave function in momentum space for different times leads to a pattern that one reminds of a carefully woven carpet and is hence termed “quantum carpet”. Quantum carpets beautifully demonstrate the surprisingly high matter wave coherence of particle-particle interactions in the zero-temperature limit.