10:30 AM–12:54 PM, Friday, June 8, 2007
TELUS Convention Centre - Macleod D
Chair: V. Schweikhard, University of Colorado
Abstract ID: BAPS.2007.DAMOP.P1.2
11:06 AM–11:42 AM
Ehud Altman
(Weizmann Institute of Science)
Interacting condensates in one and two dimensions are subject to strong phase fluctuations, that prohibit the establishment of long range order. I will describe how these fluctuations affect the interference between two condensates. I will show that the average fringe contrast of interfering independent condensates scales as a non trivial power of the condensate size (or imaging area), which depends on the decay of spatial phase correlations within each condensate. For one dimensional systems I will also derive the full quantum distribution of the interference contrast. Measurement of this quantity lends access to highly non local quantum correlations. I will then discuss a matter wave interferometer, in which two condensates are initialized with a well defined relative phase. This phase is gradually randomized in the subsequent quantum dynamics. For weakly interacting one dimensional systems we derive an exponential decay of the phase coherence, at a rate that depends on the interaction strength and on hydrodynamic parameters. In two dimensions we find power law dephasing. This result is invalidated for sufficiently strong interactions in a way that may signal the emergence of a new regime of non equilibrium quantum dynamics.
To cite this abstract, use the following reference: http://meetings.aps.org/link/BAPS.2007.DAMOP.P1.2