News 2005-11-01

Measuring the collisional Phase

Releasing the 1d BEC from a well separated double well, the atoms will have too pass through each other during the expansion to form the interference pattern. During the passage the atoms feel the mean field potential, and acquire a phase shift. Depending on the location in the interference pattern, the atoms pass through different regions and acquire different phase shifts. This leads to a bending of the interference fringes. As can be seen from the example below this bending is a very stable signature and from it the collisonal phase shift can be measured.