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

Year: 2005

Authors: Fallani L., Fort C., Piovella N., Cola M., Cataliotti F.S., Inguscio M., Bonifacio R.

Autors Affiliation: FM, I-50019 Florence, Italy; LENS, I-50019 Florence, Italy; Univ Florence, Dipartimento Fis, I-50019 Florence, Italy; Univ Milan, Dipartimento Fis, I-20133 Milan, Italy; Univ Catania, Dipartimento Fis, Scuola Super Catania, INFM,MATIS, I-95124 Catania, Italy.

Abstract: 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.

Journal/Review: PHYSICAL REVIEW A

Volume: 71 (3)      Pages from: 33612-1  to: 33612-8

KeyWords: Phase-coherent Amplification; Quantum-statistical Theory; Light-scattering; Gain
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.71.033612

Citations: 43
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