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arXiv · 1601.04425

Non-destructive shadowgraph imaging of ultracold atoms

Paul B. Wigley·Patrick J. Everitt·Kyle S. Hardman·Michael R. Hush·Chunhua Wei·Mahasen A. Sooriyabandara·Manju Perumbil·John D. Close·Nicholas P. Robins·Carlos C. N. Kuhn
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Abstract

An imaging system is presented that is capable of far-detuned non-destructive imaging of a Bose-Einstein condensate with the signal proportional to the second spatial derivative of the density. Whilst demonstrated with application to $^{85}\text{Rb}$, the technique generalizes to other atomic species and is shown to be capable of a signal to noise of ${\sim}25$ at $1$GHz detuning with $100$ in-trap images showing no observable heating or atom loss. The technique is also applied to the observation of individual trajectories of stochastic dynamics inaccessible to single shot imaging. Coupled with a fast optical phase lock loop, the system is capable of dynamically switching to resonant absorption imaging during the experiment.

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Paul B. Wigley, Patrick J. Everitt, Kyle S. Hardman, Michael R. Hush, Chunhua Wei, Mahasen A. Sooriyabandara, Manju Perumbil, John D. Close, Nicholas P. Robins, Carlos C. N. Kuhn. 2016-08-31. Non-destructive shadowgraph imaging of ultracold atoms. https://doi.org/10.1364/ol.41.004795

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