Expansion of a Quantum Gas Released from an Optical Lattice

Journal Article · Fri Oct 10 00:00:00 EDT 2008 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.101.155303· OSTI ID:21179803

Gerbier, F ^[1]; Trotzky, S; Schnorrberger, U; Thompson, J D; Bloch, I ^[2]; Foelling, S ^[3]; Widera, A ^[4]; Pollet, L; Troyer, M ^[5]; Capogrosso-Sansone, B ^[6]; Prokof'ev, N V ^[7]; Svistunov, B V ^[6]

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1. Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, ENS, UPMC, CNRS, 24 rue Lhomond, 75005 Paris (France)
2. Institut fuer Physik, Johannes Gutenberg-Universitaet, 55099 Mainz (Germany)
3. Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 (United States)
4. Institut fuer Angewandte Physik, 53115 Bonn (Germany)
5. Theoretische Physik, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich (Switzerland)
6. Department of Physics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003 (United States)
7. Theoretische Physik, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich (Switzerland) and Department of Physics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003 (United States)

We analyze the interference pattern produced by ultracold atoms released from an optical lattice, commonly interpreted as the momentum distributions of the trapped quantum gas. We show that for finite times of flight the resulting density distribution can, however, be significantly altered, similar to a near-field diffraction regime in optics. We illustrate our findings with a simple model and realistic quantum Monte Carlo simulations for bosonic atoms and compare the latter to experiments.

• OSTI ID: 21179803
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Vol. 101, Issue 15; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.155303; (c) 2008 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0031-9007
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ATOMS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
DIFFRACTION
LATTICE FIELD THEORY
MONTE CARLO METHOD
QUANTUM MECHANICS