Collective atomic recoil in a moving Bose-Einstein condensate: From superradiance to Bragg scattering

Journal Article · Tue Mar 01 04:00:00 EST 2005 · Physical Review. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.71.033612· OSTI ID:20650463

Fallani, L; Fort, C; Inguscio, M ^[1]; Piovella, N; Cola, M; Bonifacio, R ^[1]; Cataliotti, F S ^[1]

---

1. INFM and European Laboratory for Non-Linear Spectroscopy (LENS), via Nello Carrara 1, I-50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Florence (Italy)

We present the results of an experiment on light scattering from an elongated Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) interacting with a far-off-resonant pump laser. By collective atomic recoil lasing (CARL) a coherent superposition of two atomic wave packets with different momenta is created. Varying the intensity of a weak counterpropagating laser beam we observe the transition from the pure superradiant regime to the Bragg scattering regime, where Rabi oscillations in a two-level system are observed. The process is limited by the decoherence between the two atomic wave packets. In the superradiant regime the experiment gives evidence of a contribution to decoherence which depends on the initial velocity of the condensate. The system is described by the CARL-BEC model, which is a generalization of the Gross-Pitaevskii model to include the self-consistent evolution of the scattered field and a phase-diffusion decoherence process, which accounts for the observed damping.

• OSTI ID: 20650463
• Journal Information: Physical Review. A, Journal Name: Physical Review. A Journal Issue: 3 Vol. 71; ISSN 1050-2947; ISSN PLRAAN
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
BOSE-EINSTEIN CONDENSATION
DAMPING
DIFFUSION
EVOLUTION
LASER RADIATION
LIGHT SCATTERING
OSCILLATIONS
RECOILS
SUPERRADIANCE
VELOCITY
WAVE PACKETS