arXiv · cond-mat/0508439
Correlations and Counting Statistics of an Atom Laser
Abstract
We demonstrate time-resolved counting of single atoms extracted from a weakly interacting Bose-Einstein condensate of $^{87}$Rb atoms. The atoms are detected with a high-finesse optical cavity and single atom transits are identified. An atom laser beam is formed by continuously output coupling atoms from the Bose-Einstein condensate. We investigate the full counting statistics of this beam and measure its second order correlation function $g^{(2)}(τ)$ in a Hanbury Brown and Twiss type experiment. For the monoenergetic atom laser we observe a constant correlation function $g^{(2)}(τ)=1.00\pm0.01$ and an atom number distribution close to a Poissonian statistics. A pseudo-thermal atomic beam shows a bunching behavior and a Bose distributed counting statistics.
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Anton Öttl, Stephan Ritter, Michael Köhl, Tilman Esslinger. 2005-08-31. Correlations and Counting Statistics of an Atom Laser. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.95.090404
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