arXiv · 0904.2062
Spatially inhomogeneous phase evolution of a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate
Abstract
We investigate the spatially dependent relative phase evolution of an elongated two-component Bose-Einstein condensate. The pseudospin-1/2 system is comprised of the |F=1,m_F=-1> and |F=2,m_F=+1> hyperfine ground states of 87Rb, which we magnetically trap and interrogate with radio-frequency and microwave fields. We probe the relative phase evolution with Ramsey interferometry and observe a temporal decay of the interferometric contrast well described by a mean-field formalism. Inhomogeneity of the collective relative phase dominates the loss of interferometric contrast, rather than decoherence or phase diffusion. We demonstrate a technique to simultaneously image each state, yielding subpercent variations in the measured relative number while preserving the spatial mode of each component. In addition, we propose a spatially sensitive interferometric technique to image the relative phase.
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R. P. Anderson, C. Ticknor, A. I. Sidorov, B. V. Hall. 2009-08-07. Spatially inhomogeneous phase evolution of a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.80.023603
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