Condensate Phase Microscopy

Abstract

We show that the phase of a Bose-Einstein condensate wave-function of ultra-cold atoms in an optical lattice potential in two-dimensions can be detected. The time-of-flight images, obtained in a free expansion of initially trapped atoms, are related to the initial distribution of atomic momenta but the information on the phase is lost. However, the initial atomic cloud is bounded and this information, in addition to the time-of-flight images, is sufficient in order to employ the phase retrieval algorithms. We analyze the phase retrieval methods for model wave-functions in a case of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a triangular optical lattice in the presence of artificial gauge fields.

6 pages, 3 figures, article + supplement, version accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters

References in corpus (13)

• Many-Body Physics with Ultracold Gases
• Single-Atom Resolved Fluorescence Imaging of an Atomic Mott Insulator
• Spin-orbit coupling in quantum gases
• Tunable gauge potential for neutral and spinless particles in driven lattices
• A unified evaluation of iterative projection algorithms for phase retrieval
• Non-Abelian gauge fields and topological insulators in shaken optical lattices
• Engineering Ising-XY spin models in a triangular lattice via tunable artificial gauge fields
• Orbital superfluidity in the $P$-band of a bipartite optical square lattice
• In situ observation of strongly interacting ferromagnetic domains in a shaken optical lattice
• Expansion of a quantum gas released from an optical lattice
• Interaction-induced chiral p_x \pm i p_y superfluid order of bosons in an optical lattice
• Kilohertz-driven Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices
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Cited by in corpus (7)

• Emergence of coherence and the dynamics of quantum phase transitions
• Quantum dark solitons in ultracold one-dimensional Bose and Fermi gases
• Polarization and phase textures in lattice plasmon condensates
• Observation of Chiral-Mode Domains in a Frustrated XY Model on Optical Triangular Lattices
• Determination of Chern numbers with a phase retrieval algorithm
• A phase microscope for quantum gases
• Phase Retrieval of Vortices in Bose-Einstein Condensates