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Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 070404 (2006) [4 pages]

Beam Quality of a Nonideal Atom Laser

J.-F. Riou, W. Guerin, Y. Le Coq, M. Fauquembergue, V. Josse, P. Bouyer, and A. Aspect
Laboratoire Charles Fabry de l'Institut d'Optique, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique et Université Paris Sud 11, Bât. 503, Campus Universitaire d'Orsay, 91403 Orsay Cedex, France
Received 11 September 2005; published 24 February 2006

We study the propagation of a noninteracting atom laser distorted by the strong lensing effect of the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) from which it is outcoupled. We observe a transverse structure containing caustics that vary with the density within the residing BEC. Using the WKB approximation, Fresnel-Kirchhoff integral formalism, and ABCD matrices, we are able to describe analytically the atom-laser propagation. This allows us to characterize the quality of the nonideal atom-laser beam by a generalized M2 factor defined in analogy to photon lasers. Finally we measure this quality factor for different lensing effects.

©2006 The American Physical Society

URL: http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.070404
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.070404
PACS: 03.75.Pp; 39.20.+q; 41.85.Ew; 42.60.Jf
  • 03.75.Pp
    Atom lasers
  • 39.20.+q
    Atom interferometry techniques
  • 41.85.Ew
    Beam profile, beam intensity
  • 42.60.Jf
    Laser beam characteristics including profile, intensity, and power; spatial pattern formation
  • YEAR: 2006
KEYWORDS: atom lasers, Bose-Einstein condensation, laser beams, WKB calculations, light propagation, atom-photon collisions

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