Observations of Density Fluctuations in an Elongated Bose Gas: Ideal Gas and Quasicondensate Regimes

Journal Article · Fri Apr 07 04:00:00 EDT 2006 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.130403· OSTI ID:20775149

Esteve, J ^[1]; Trebbia, J -B; Schumm, T; Aspect, A; Westbrook, C I; Bouchoule, I ^[1]

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1. Laboratoire Charles Fabry, CNRS et Universite Paris Sud 11, 91403 Orsay Cedex (France)

We report in situ measurements of density fluctuations in a quasi-one-dimensional {sup 87}Rb Bose gas at thermal equilibrium in an elongated harmonic trap. We observe an excess of fluctuations compared to the shot-noise level expected for uncorrelated atoms. At low atomic density, the measured excess is in good agreement with the expected 'bunching' for an ideal Bose gas. At high density, the measured fluctuations are strongly reduced compared to the ideal gas case. We attribute this reduction to repulsive interatomic interactions. The data are compared with a calculation for an interacting Bose gas in the quasicondensate regime.

• OSTI ID: 20775149
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 13 Vol. 96; ISSN 0031-9007; ISSN PRLTAO
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ATOMS
BOSE-EINSTEIN GAS
BOSONS
DENSITY
FLUCTUATIONS
ONE-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
RUBIDIUM 87
THERMAL EQUILIBRIUM
TRAPS