Manipulating Bose-Einstein condensates with laser lightby

Shin Inouye
Submitted to the Department of Physics
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree ofDoctor of Philosophy
at theMASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
September 2001
c Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2001. All rights reserved.


Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Department of Physics
June 7, 2001

Certified by . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Wolfgang Ketterle
John D. MacArthur Professor of Physics
Thesis Supervisor

Accepted by . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Thomas J. Greytak
Professor of Physics, Associate Department Head for Education

Manipulating Bose-Einstein condensates with laser lightby
Shin Inouye
Submitted to the Department of Physics
on June 7, 2001, in partial fulﬁllment of therequirements for the degree ofDoctor of Philosophy

Abstract
A dilute gas Bose-Einstein condensate was probed and manipulated by oﬀ-resonant laser
beams.
Spontaneous and stimulated oﬀ-resonant light scatterings were studied experimentally.
Stimulated, two-photon Bragg scattering was used for spectroscopic measurement of themean-ﬁeld energy and of the intrinsic momentum uncertainty of the condensate. The highmomentum and energy resolution of this method allowed the determination of the coherence length of the condensate, which was shown to be equal to its size. Spontaneous,oﬀ-resonant Rayleigh scattering was studied by exposing an elongated condensate to a single oﬀ-resonant laser beam. Highly directional scattering of light and atoms was observed.
This collective light scattering is shown to be directly analogous to Dicke superradiance,
where the electronic coherence is replaced by the coherent center-of-mass motion of theatoms in the condensate.
Superradiant Rayleigh scattering was used to amplify atomic matter waves. The active
medium was a Bose-Einstein condensate, pumped by oﬀ-resonant laser light (“Dressed condensate”). An atomic wave packet was ampliﬁed with a gain of 10 to 100. Phase-coherenceof the ampliﬁer was veriﬁed by observing the interference of the output wave with a reference wave packet. Optical properties of the dressed condensate were also characterized,
focusing on the key role of long-lived matter wave gratings produced by interference between
the condensate at rest and the recoiling atoms. The narrow bandwidth for the optical gain
gave rise to an extremely slow group velocity of an ampliﬁed light pulse (∼ 1 m/s).
The role of quantum statistics in these enhanced scatterings was studied. It was shownthat the macroscopic occupation of a single quantum state is not necessary. These processes
are in principle possible for fermionic or non-degenerate samples, provided the atomic ensemble has a suﬃciently long coherence time.
By moving a focused, far oﬀ-resonant laser beam through a condensate, vortex excitations were created in a Bose-Einstein condensate. They were observed as dislocations in theinterference fringes formed by the stirred condensate and a second unperturbed condensate.
The technique was shown to be a powerful tool to study turbulent superﬂuid ﬂow.
Thesis Supervisor: Wolfgang Ketterle
Title: John D. MacArthur Professor of Physics

2

To Tamon, Kazuko, Ayako,

and Shinko.

3

Acknowledgments
The results of my ﬁve years of research in MIT are presented in the rest of this dissertation.
Here, I would like to acknowledge people who made this possible.
The biggest “thanks” goes to Professor Wolfgang Ketterle, who took the job of advising
me. As all his previous students have pointed out, Wolfgang is a true group leader. His
genuine interest in physics and his sincere attitude toward people created the special atmosphere inside the group, and I just loved working in that environment. Of course, he is also
an extremely strong scientist and an excellent teacher. In fact, I am impressed by him formany diﬀerent reasons throughout the past ﬁve years.
I also learned a lot from Professor Dave Pritchard. Conversations with him were always stimulating, whether the subject was on condensate experiments, or on the history ofdomestic animals.
Everyday life in the lab consists of close collaborations between postdocs and graduate
students, and I beneﬁted signiﬁcantly throughout the years from these collaborations. Twoformer graduate students, Michael Andrews and Dallin Durfee, were great resources forme at the early stage of my research. Later, I found myself adopting many of Michael’s
special style of research: a small notebook in the back pocket, Mike’s unit (in which themass of sodium was 1/17), etc., which helped me increase the eﬃciency in the lab work.
One of the most eﬃcient people I worked with was Jörn Stenger, who was a kind personwith a strong leadership. During the second half of my Ph.D. study, I had the privilege
to work with Subhadeep Gupta, Tilman Pfau, Robert Löw, and Till Rosenband who are
not only extremely nice people but also have a great enthusiasm for physics. The successesof most of the research presented here crucially depended on their dedication, especiallyDeep’s constant help during and between the runs, and innovative works from others (like“Tilman’s formula,” “Robert’s slit,” and “Till’s scanning beam,” etc.). I feel like I owe eachof them a paper.
Although I did not have the chance to directly collaborate with some of the people inour group, the time we shared was priceless. My lab nickname “Shunty-Shin” was given
to me by two of my great collaborators, Dan Stamper-Kurn and Ananth Chikkatur. The“Enrico Fermi” summer school in 1998, which I attended with them, was one of the bestexperience in my life. The list of other collaborators include Hans-Joachim Miesner, Axel
Görlitz, Todd Gustavson, Aaron Leanhardt, and Kai Dieckmann from the “Old” lab; Dallin
Durfee, Chris Kuklewicz, Chandra Raman, Robert Onofrio, Johnny Vogels, Charles Sestok,
Jeﬀ Gore, Michael Köhl, Kaiwen Xu, and Jamil Abo-Shaeer from the “New” lab; Zoran
Hadzibabic, Claudiu Stan, and Martin Zwierlein from the Lithium lab; Erik Streed, Micah
Boyd, Yoshio Torii, and Dominik Schneble from the Rubidium lab.
The “Ketterle group” was not the only resource I had at MIT. People in the larger
AMO group at MIT were quite supportive, and I would like to express my gratitude for the
support, especially from those who entered MIT together in 1996: Simon Rainville, Tony
4

Roberts, Steve Moss, and Chris Kuklewicz. RLE(Research Laboratory of Electronics) wasanother place where I felt the strength of a true team work. The help from Maxine Samuels,
Gerry Power and Albert McGurl was literally vital to the success of my life at MIT. Also,
I would like to say thank you to Carol Costa. Talking with her once in a while in her oﬃce
was somehow relaxing to me.
I also would like to aknowledge people who supported my life outside the lab: Takaaki
Koga, Isamu Kato, oﬃcers of JAM(Japanese Association of MIT), and all other friends.
Finally, it’s time for my family. I would like to say thank you to my father Tamon for
inspiring me to study abroad, my mother Kazuko and sister Ayako for moral support, andmy wife Shinko for being next to me and encouraging me when I was facing challenges.

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Oﬃce ofNaval Research (ONR), the Army Research Oﬃce and the Joint Services Electronics Program (JSEP) of the Army Research Oﬃce (ARO), the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA), and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

5

Contents
1 Introduction
1.1 Realization of dilute gas Bose-Einstein Condensate (1995 ∼) . . . . . . . . .

1.2

1.3

1.1.1

Why is BEC interesting?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

12

1.1.2

What is BEC? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

13

My career as a Ph.D. student (1996 ∼) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

15

1.2.1

Projects in the old lab and my contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . .

15

1.2.2

Outline of this thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

16

History of BEC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

17

1.3.1

Einstein’s prediction and response from liquid helium . . . . . . . .

17

1.3.2

The quest for BEC in dilute system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

192 Experimental setup
2.1

12
12

25

Overview of the experimental setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

25

2.1.1

Zeeman slowing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

26

2.1.2

Dark-SPOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

26

2.1.3

Polarization-gradient cooling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

26

2.1.4

Magnetic trap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

27

2.1.5

Rf-induced evaporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

27

2.1.6

Imaging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

27

2.2

Laser system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

28

2.3

Vacuum chamber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

30

3 Bragg scattering from a Bose-Einstein condesate
3.1 Linewidth of an “atom laser” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

35
35

3.2

Bragg scattering as a two-photon resonance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

36

3.3

Finite-size broadening and eﬀects of the mean-ﬁeld . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

38

3.4

Higher order Bragg scattering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

41

3.5

Other measurements of the coherence length of condensates . . . . . . . . .

42

4 Superradiant Rayleigh scattering from a Bose-Einstein condensate
4.1

Directional matter waves produced by spontaneous scatterings . . . . . . .

6

44
44

4.2

Dicke superradiance — emerging coherence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

47

4.3

In-situ monitoring of matter wave gratings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

48

5 Matter wave ampliﬁcation using a dressed Bose-Einstein condensate

53

5.1

“Seeding” the superradiance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

53

5.2

Phase of the ampliﬁed matter wave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

55

6 Optical properties of a dressed Bose-Einstein condensate

57

6.1

Four-wave mixing of light and atoms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

57

6.2

Ampliﬁcation of light in a dressed condensate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

60

6.3

Cross-section for optical gain and slow light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

60

6.4

Relation between optical gain and atomic gain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

62

6.5

Optical Bloch equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

65

6.6

Optical probe of matter wave gain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

69

6.7

Single-atom and collective behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

70

7 Does matter wave ampliﬁcation work for fermions?

73

8 Imaging a vortex in a Bose-Einstein condensate

77

8.1

A little personal introduction to vortex experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . .

77

8.2

Vortices in BEC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

78

9 Conclusion and Outlook82

A Observation of Feshbach resonances in a Bose-Einstein condensate

84

B Strongly Enhanced Inelastic Collisions in a Bose-Einstein Condensate
near Feshbach Resonances

90

C Bragg Spectroscopy of a Bose-Einstein condensate

95

D Superradiant Rayleigh Scattering from a Bose-Einstein Condensate

101

E Phase-coherent ampliﬁcation of atomic matter waves

106

F Ampliﬁcation of Light and Atoms in a Bose-Einstein Condensate

111

G Does matter wave ampliﬁcation work for fermions?

116

H Observation of vortex phase singularities in Bose-Einstein condensates 1217

List of Figures
1-1 Typical images of Bose-Einstein condensates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

15

2-1 Relevant optical transitions of sodium. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

29

2-2 Frequencies of beams generated from the dye-laser system. . . . . . . . . . .
2-3 Schematics of the oven assembly. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2930

2-4 Schematics of the slower part. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

31

2-5 Schematic of the main trapping chamber. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

31

2-6 Ioﬀe-Pritchard trap with clover-leaf design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

32

2-7 Circuit diagram of the high-current setup. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

33

2-8 Schematic of absorption and phase-contrast imaging. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

34

3-1 Typical Bragg resonance curve for trapped condensates. . . . . . . . . . . .

36

3-2 Schemes for high-resolution velocimetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

37

3-3 Bragg resonances for a trapped condensate and after time-of-ﬂight . . . . .

38

3-4 Bragg spectroscopy of a trapped condensate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

40

3-5 Kapitza-Dirac diﬀraction of a Bose-Einstein condensate. . . . . . . . . . . .

41

3-6 Observation of elastic collision between the condensate and Bragg diﬀracted
atoms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

43

4-1 Observation of superradiant Rayleigh scattering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

45

4-2 Build-up of a matter wave grating inside a condensate due to light scattering. 46
4-3 Dicke Superradiance from two atoms in excited states. . . . . . . . . . . . .

48

4-4 Dicke superradiance from an extended sample. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

49

4-5 Observation of directional emission of light. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

50

4-6 Matter wave ampliﬁcation out of noise. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

51

5-1 Demonstration of matter wave ampliﬁcation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

54

5-2 Ramsey-type atom interferometer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

55

5-3 Phase coherent ampliﬁcation of matter waves. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

56

6-1 Ampliﬁcation of light and atoms by oﬀ-resonant light scattering. . . . . . .

61

6-2 Pulse delay due to light ampliﬁcation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

63

8

6-3 Gain and temporal behavior of light pulses propagating through a dressed
condensate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

67

6-4 Rabi oscillations of atoms observed by monitoring the transmitted probe lightintensity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

68

6-5 Pump-probe spectroscopy of a matter wave grating inside the condensate. .

70

6-6 Schematic diagram of the diﬀerent regimes of a dressed condensate. . . . . .

71

6-7 From single-atom Rabi oscillations to collective superradiance. . . . . . . .

71

6-8 Comparison between two diﬀerent methods to generate slow light. . . . . .

72

7-1 Quantum statistics vs. coherence time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

75

8-1 Density and phase proﬁle of a moving condensate with a vortex. . . . . . .

79

8-2 Schematic of the experiment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

79

8-3 Observation of the phase singularities due to vortices. . . . . . . . . . . . .

81

9

Notations
A : cross-section of a condensatea (â) : atomic ﬁeld (operator)
asc : scattering lengthb (b̂) : light ﬁeld (operator)
C : coeﬃcient of four-wave mixing Hamiltonianc : speed of lightcs : speed of sound in a condensated : atomic dipole matrix element
E : (complex) electric ﬁeld strength
G : growth rate of a matter wave
g : optical gain
|g > : condensate ground statek : wavevector of light.
kF : wavevector associated with fermi momentum
kth : wavevector associated with thermal energy
M : mass of (sodium) atoms.
m : magnetic quantum number
N : total number of atoms
N0 : number of atoms in a condensate
Nq : number of quasi-particles associated with momentum q
nk : number of photons in mode k
np : number of photons in the probe beam moden(ω) : (complex) index of refraction (n1 + in2 )q : wavevector associated with the momentum transfer
R : Rayleigh scattering rate10

S(q) : static structure factor
S(q, ω) : dynamic structure factors : size of the spin
U0 : 4π2 asc /Mv : oﬀ-diagonal element of density matrix (2 Im(ρ12 ))vg : group velocity of lightw : population diﬀerence between two coupled states (ρ22 − ρ11 )Γ : natural linewidth of the atomic resonanceΓ2 : linewidth of two-photon transition∆ : detuning of light from the atomic resonance0 : permittivity of vacuum
λ (λ) : wavelength of optical transition (λ = λ/2π)µ : chemical potential of a condensate
ρ : atomic density
ρ0 : peak atomic density
ρE : density of statesρn : normalized atomic densityρ̂(q) : density matrix
σ : scattering cross section
τD : delay time of a probe pulseΩ : Rabi frequency of lightΩ : Solid angle for radiationΩ0 , ΩR : Two-photon Rabi frequencies
ω0 : angular frequency of optical transition
ωqB : frequency of quasi-particles with wave vector q
ωrec : recoil (angular) frequency, k2 /2M
ωx : trap frequency in x- direction

11

Chapter 1

Introduction
1.1

Realization of dilute gas Bose-Einstein Condensate (1995 ∼)1.1.1

Why is BEC interesting?

The quantum nature of matter shows up when the number of particles becomes comparable to the number of accessible states in the system. Fermions start to show the eﬀect of
the Pauli-exclusion principle when the occupation numbers become on the order of unity.
Lasers start lasing when the average number of (spontaneously-emitted) photons in thecavity exceeds one. Bosons start to “attract” each other by bosonic stimulation and form amacroscopic population in the ground state of the system — this is Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC), which is the topic of this thesis.
The realization of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute atomic gases in 1995 [1, 2, 3]
triggered a burst of research activity, which was almost impossible to foresee. Indeed, ﬁfteen
out of twenty issues of Physical Review Letters published this year (between January andMay of 2001) contain more than one paper that has “Bose-Einstein condensate” explicitly
in its title. Since there are so many articles on Bose-Einstein condensates, it is almost
useless to search papers with the keywords “Bose-Einstein condensation,” except when one
wants to see how many there are!
There are several reasons why dilute gas BEC has attracted so much interest. First, it
has realized a long-sought “weakly interacting” superﬂuid to which the original concepts ofquasi-particle and collective excitations are readily applicable. The study of superﬂuids was
so far limited to liquid helium, whose properties are strongly modiﬁed by the interaction
between atoms. For alkali condensates, the eﬀect of interactions measured by the “quantum
depletion” is typically 1% or less, whereas it is about 90% for liquid helium. Secondly, it hasrealized “coherent” matter waves which are only limited by Heisenberg uncertainty. This has
enabled us to apply many of the concepts developed in the atom optics and quantum optics
communities. I am still amazed by the fact that higher order coherence, non-linear wave
mixing, solitons, and squeezing have all been realized within ﬁve years of the ﬁrst realization12

of BEC. Third, advanced technologies in manipulation and probing of the condensatesenabled us to access desired states and measure precise values experimentally. The density
proﬁle of the condensate is easily accessible by in-situ or time-of-ﬂight imaging, whereas thephase proﬁle of the condensate can be accessed through interferometric techniques. Phase
can be precisely “engineered” to generate desired quantum states. Even the interaction
between atoms can be tuned by external ﬁelds. Aside from these, one might ﬁnd otherreasons “why” Bose-Einstein condensates are interesting to study. However, what drives us
most might be still the fact that it is a “new” state of matter!

1.1.2

What is BEC?

How BEC forms
Before going into the details of BEC, I would like to give a simple description of how a
BEC forms and what a BEC is. Rigorous derivation of following results can be found in
textbooks on statistical mechanics, e.g. Ref. [4]. As was introduced in the previous section,
it forms when the number of particles N becomes comparable to the number of states√∼ (kth L/2π)3 , where kth = 2πM kB T / is the thermal deBroglie wavevector and L is thesize of the system (M is the mass of the particle and T is the temperature). Using thedeBroglie wavelength λdB = 2π/kth , the condition for the onset of quantum eﬀects can be
described as follows:ρλdB 3 ∼ 1(1.1)

where ρ is the density of the particle. The value on the left-hand side (ρλdB 3 ) is calledphase-space density, and it shows how far the sample is from the quantum regime. By
increasing the density or reducing the temperature of the ensemble, one can approach thequantum regime.
At high phase-space density, deviation from the classical distribution becomes noticeable
and eﬀects of quantum statistics set in. For bosons, multiple occupancy of a single state isallowed, and the occupation number follows the Bose-Einstein distribution function fi :fi =1
exp( EkiB−µ
T )−1

(1.2)

where µ is the chemical potential. The number of particles accommodated in the thermal
distribution Nth is given by integrating the density of states ρE weighted by this distributionfunction:Nth =1

ρE (E)dE.
exp( E−µkB T ) − 1(1.3)

As the number of particles increases, the chemical potential µ approaches zero (the singleparticle ground state energy) from the negative side. Since µ cannot be positive, maximum

13

number of particles allowed in Bose-Einstein distribution is determined by setting µ = 0.
The peculiar feature of Bose-Einstein distribution is that this is ﬁnite, say, for particles ina 3D box potential.
The remaining particles have to go somewhere, and the only choice in equilibrium is
to join the lowest energy state, which is the ground state of the system. This is the BoseEinstein condensation. This is a true quantum mechanical phase-transition, which does notdepend on interaction between particles. For the case of particles in a 3D box, it takes placeat phase-space density ρλdB 3 of 2.612.
How BEC looks like
Although the condition for BEC phase-transition does not depend on interaction between
atoms, the product (the condensate) is strongly aﬀected by the interaction between atoms.
The dilute-gas condensate can be well described by a macroscopic wavefunction (or orderparameter) ψ((r), which satisﬁes the Gross-Pitaevskii equation.

4π2 asc
2 2
2∇ + V ((r) +|ψ((r)| ψ((r) = µψ((r)
−
2M
M

(1.4)

where asc is the scattering length of atoms, which determines the sign and the strengthof interaction. If the scattering length is negative, condensates with a large number ofatoms are not allowed since it builds up local density maxima to reduce the overall energy.
For sodium, the scattering length is positive, and large stable condensates can form at theminimum of the trapping potential V ((r). For typical experimental conditions, the eﬀectof kinetic energy (−(2 /2M )∇2 ψ((r)) is small and the density proﬁle of the condensate iswell approximated by the “Thomas-Fermi” density distribution determined by the balance
between the trapping potential and the interaction energy:ρ((r) =

M(µ − V ((r)).
4π2 asc(1.5)

Typical images of a Bose-Einstein condensate are shown in Fig. 1-1 to help intuitive
understandings of the readers. Fig. 1-1a shows density proﬁles of an atomic cloud as it
crosses the phase-transition temperature. Strong anisotropy of the atomic cloud resultsfrom that of the trapping potential. The emergence of a dense core at the center of the trap
is the signature of Bose-Einstein condensation. By reducing the temperature far below thetransition temperature, one can achieve almost “pure” condensate, which contains ∼ 107
atoms and is ∼ 20 × 20 × 250 µm in size. Fig. 1-1b shows typical “time-of-ﬂight” images
taken after shutting oﬀ the conﬁnement potential and waiting a variable time afterwards.
Diﬀerence between the thermal cloud and the condensate is evident from the shape of the
expansion. Thermal clouds expand isotropically, whereas condensates expands anisotropically, since the interaction energy is released mainly in the direction of tight conﬁnement.
These images are our main window to the quantum world, and we often take hundreds of
14

(b)

(a)

250
µm

2 µK

200 nK
Lower Temperature

Figure 1-1: Typical images of Bose-Einstein condensates used for analyses. (a)In-situ images
taken as the atomic cloud crosses the phase-transition temperature show the emergence ofa dense core, which is the Bose-Einstein condensate. (b) A time-of-ﬂight picture taken after
releasing the atoms from the conﬁnement potential shows a clear bi-modal feature, which
is made of a condensate (inner black dot) and a thermal cloud (outside dilute cloud). The
thermal cloud expands isotropically, reﬂecting the momentum distribution of atoms in thethermal distribution. The condensate expands anisotropically since the interaction energy
is preferentially released in the direction of tight conﬁnement.

images in a day, from the morning to the next early morning.

1.2

My career as a Ph.D. student (1996 ∼)1.2.1

Projects in the old lab and my contributions

All the research activities presented here was performed in the “old lab” in Prof. Wolfgang
Ketterle’s group. From the beginning to the end, I tremendously beneﬁted from the close
collaboration within the group, which consists of highly innovative researchers, full of enthusiasm. Although each project was mainly carried out by two or three researchers in
the lab, discussions at the group meetings and improvements and maintenance between theruns were also essential. The following is an eﬀort to indicate my signiﬁcant contributions
to projects, and I have tried to be as objective as possible.
My research activity here in MIT started in the fall of 1996, when I joined the lab asa ﬁrst year graduate student. It was just after dc magnetic trap was installed[5], but theinterference between two condensates [6] had not yet been observed, and phase-contrast
imaging was being tried out. After spending time on building cooling water circuits inthe lab and also building several small and high current electronics, I joined the eﬀort toobserve vortices in the spring of 1997. After its failure, I split from the main eﬀort ofthe lab, which was to develop an optical dipole trap for condensates [7], and set up theinfrastructure for observing Feshbach resonances [8] (Appendix A). The resonance wasobserved in early 1998, and this is the ﬁrst project that I made a signiﬁcant contribution.

15

(The experiment itself was performed with two other collaborators.) After that, I teamed
up with a postdoc and completed characterizing the Feshbach resonances [9] (Appendix B),
and also investigated the ground state of optically trapped condensates with spin degrees of
freedom [10]. Meanwhile, dynamic [11, 12] properties of magnetically trapped condensates,
meta-stable [13] and transient [14] features of a spinor condensate, and the formation of acondensate [15, 16] were concurrently studied in the lab.
From the fall of 1998, we switched our focus from optical dipole traps to Bragg scatteringof condensates [17] (Appendix C), which triggered a series of oﬀ-resonant light scatteringexperiments. Especially, the discovery of superradiant Rayleigh scattering [18] (AppendixD) lead to phase-coherent matter wave ampliﬁcation [19] (Appendix E). The topic wasextended to the observation of light ampliﬁcation in condensates [20] (Appendix F). Theoretical extension led to the discussion on the role of quantum statistics in ampliﬁcation [21].
I served as the responsible person for these projects. Meanwhile, the structure factor [22] ofthe condensate and superﬂuidity of the condensate [23] were investigated by utilizing Bragg
scattering as a tool for probing and manipulating the momentum state of condensates.
The most important development in the lab during the period of 2000-2001 was theconstruction of the new “science” chamber, which achieved Bose-Einstein condensation in
February 2001. There were several parallel projects during that time, and I led the eﬀort ofobserving the phase diﬀusion of the condensate. The project itself was not successful due totechnical limitations, but the techniques developed there was adopted to the next project,which is the observation of vortices as a fringe dislocation [24] (Appendix H).

1.2.2

Outline of this thesis

In this dissertation, I decided to focus on projects after the fall of 1998, and mention only
brieﬂy the work before. This is because I wanted to maintain a clear focus in this dissertation. The main topic is the manipulation of the momentum and angular momentum ofcondensates by optical means, and I believe each project shown in the following chapters
serve as good examples. The original papers on Feshbach resonances are attached in Appendices A and B with some comments on recent progress based on our work. I completely
left the spinor work out of this thesis partly because it was already presented in the previous
dissertation [25] in a beautiful integrated manner with various extensions. Other works inwhich I played a secondary role are also left out.
So the structure of this thesis is as follows. Concise summary of condensate physics andhistory is laid out in Chapter 1. In Chapter 2, our experimental apparatus is explained
brieﬂy. Chapters 3-8 form the most important part of this dissertation. The oﬀ-resonant
light scattering experiments and vortex experiments are explained with emphasis on motivations, underlying physics and limitations. These chapters are not intended for providing
information on (hyper)ﬁne details of each experiment. I refer interested readers to original
papers which are attached in appendices in chronological order. Conclusion and future
16

Theory

Experiments

1923, deBroglie
Matter wave (λdB = h/p) [35].
1924, Bose
Derivation of Planck distribution fromphoton statistics [36].
1925, Einstein
Bose-Einstein condensation for massive
particles [37].
1926, Schrödinger
Shrödinger’s wave equation.
1926, Fermi
Fermi statistics [38].

1928, Keesom and Wolfke
Phase transition in liquid helium [39].

outlook are discussed in Chapter 9.

1.3

History of BEC

Both theories and experiments of BEC are less than 100 years old: however, their histories involve many surprises and also deep thoughts on the quantum mechanical nature ofmatter, which were developed by many great physicists in the 20th century. They are also
intimately related to many of the major experimental achievements in that century, suchas superﬂuidity, superconductivity, and lasing. Readers interested in the history of the theories should refer to the biographies of Einstein [26] and London [27], and also a review by
Griﬃn [28]. Current dilute gas BEC experiments can trace their conceptual roots througha series of experiments with hydrogen and laser-cooled atoms performed in the 1980’s. The
history of the hydrogen experiments was summarized by Greytak [29]. Experiments on
the laser-cooled atoms were nicely described by Chu, Cohen-Tannoudji and Phillips in theNobel lectures given in 1997 [30, 31, 32]. The eﬀorts toward BEC were reviewed in detail by
Cornell [33] and Ketterle [34]. Here, I will quickly review the ﬁeld of BEC by focusing on
when and how relevant theoretical concepts and experimental techniques were developed.
Theoretical and experimental discoveries are shown in chronological tables. References areprimarily shown in these tables rather than in the main body of the text.

1.3.1

Einstein’s prediction and response from liquid helium

In 1924, Bose re-derived the black-body radiation spectrum by treating the radiation ﬁeld as“a photon gas” and applying a statistical argument to it. Einstein, one of the small numberof physicists who knew about deBroglie’s new idea of matter waves, considered applying
the same statistics to massive particles. If particles were waves, they should obey the same
17

Theory

Experiments

1938, London
Bose-Einstein condensation as an
explanation for liquid helium(TBEC = 3.1K) [40, 42].
1938, Tisza
Two ﬂuid model of liquid helium based on
BEC (ρ = ρnormal + ρsuper ) [43, 44].
1941, Landau
Two ﬂuid model based on quantum
hydrodynamics [45].

1938, Kapitza, Allen and Misener
The viscocity of helium II → 0 [46, 47].
1938, Allen and Jones
Fountain eﬀect [48].

statistics as photons! He applied Bose-Einstein statistics to mono-atomic molecules andderived the Bose-Einstein distribution. He immediately noticed a peculiar feature of the
distribution: at low temperature, it saturates. In other words, below a critical temperature,
the number of particles in the thermal distribution is limited, and the remaining ones haveto go to the lowest energy state. This was how the concept of Bose-Einstein condensation
began.
Foundation of Quantum mechanics was laid out in the next few years. Fermi statistics
was introduced and the relation between the statistics and the spin was clariﬁed. However,in the meantime, Einstein’s prediction of condensation acquired “the reputation of having
only a purely imaginary existence” [40]. Uhlenbeck, a leading experts in the kinetic theory atthat time criticized Einstein’s prediction by arguing that it would not occur in ﬁnite systems.
According to his comments, this criticism was accepted even by Einstein himself [41].
The situation quickly turned around in 1938, when the superﬂuid nature of liquid helium
was observed. London knew that a year before, some issue of second-order phase transitions
were clariﬁed and Uhlenbeck had taken back his criticism on Einstein’s work. He also knew
4 He was a boson and immediately put the two ideas together: some sort of BEC wasinvolved in the strange phase transition shown by superﬂuid 4 He. As evidence, London
noted that Einstein’s formula for the phase transition temperature (TBEC = 3.1 K) gave agood estimate of the observed transition temperature (Tλ = 2.2 K).
Extending London’s work, Tisza developed the two-ﬂuid model and explained all the experiments exhibiting superﬂuidity, usually involving the normal ﬂuid and superﬂuid moving
in opposite directions. His notion of superﬂuid was based on Bose-Einstein condensation
as a microscopic model. However, soon Landau reproduced the two-ﬂuid model startingfrom classical hydrodynamics and quantizing it. In his paper, Landau never mentioned thefact that 4 He atoms were bosons, let alone the existence of a Bose condensate. He introduced the concept of collective excitations like second sound, which was later observed as atemperature oscillation. He assumed a phonon- and roton-branch of the quasi-particle ex18

citation spectrum to explain superﬂuid behavior, and they were later conﬁrmed in neutron
scattering experiments. This mixture of success (phonon-roton spectrum, second sound,...) and failure (quantum hydrodynamics itself) of Landau’s approach resulted in confusion
about the role of BEC and a macroscopic wavefunction in liquid helium.
In the following years, the research on liquid helium was reﬁned, but it was confronted
with the strong interaction between atoms and gradually decoupled from the original ideaof BEC. New tools like second quantization became available in the condensed-matter community, and it provided them with theoretical breakthroughs like the derivation of thephonon spectrum. Especially the era “1957-1965” was a quite fruitful period for the theoretical study of weakly interacting Bose-condensed gas system. Many important theorists
attacked this hot topic at that moment, and “the ﬁnal theoretical ediﬁce is one of the great
success stories in theoretical physics. However, until recently it was largely unknown since
it was somewhat uncoupled from experiments... (Griﬃn, in Ref. [28]).”1.3.2

The quest for BEC in dilute system

Stimulated by the theoretical work, serious attempt to realize BEC in weakly interacting
gas started in the 1960’s. There were several directions: liquid helium, optically-excited
excitons in semiconductors, and atomic gases. Liquid helium in vycor, a porus spongelike glass, behaved like a dilute three-dimensional gas and showed features of condensation.
Condensation of excitons (electron-hole pairs) in semiconductor (Cu2 O, also CuCl) were alsostudied. With the advent of intense short pulse lasers, it became possible to achieve highdensity of excitons. Narrow photo luminescence spectra were observed [66], and superﬂuid
behavior of excitons was also suggested, but still the condensation was not conclusive. The
quest for BEC in dilute atomic gases, which is directly relevant to the topic of this thesis,
is explained in the next two subsections.
Spin-polarized hydrogen
The ﬁrst discussion of atomic hydrogen as a candidate for a dilute gas BEC was publishedby Hecht. He used the quantum theory of corresponding states to conclude that atomic
hydrogen, prevented from recombining into molecules by a strong magnetic ﬁeld, would
remain a gas down to absolute zero of temperature. The idea was raised again later by
Stwalley and Nosanow. They also pointed out that the presence of the interaction between
the atoms could lead to the Bose condensate being a superﬂuid as well. A number ofexperimental groups began work in the ﬁeld. Spin-polarized hydrogen was ﬁrst stabilized
by Silvera and Walraven in Amsterdam, and brought within a factor of 50 of condensing
at MIT. However, it became increasingly clear that the walls of the cell causes severe
limitations to the lifetime of the gas. Atoms could thermalize with a superﬂuid helium
surface without becoming depolarized. However, as the temperature is lowered, the density

19

Theory

Experiments

1947, Landau
The phonon-roton spectrum(assumption) [49].
1947, Bogoliubov
Derivation of phonon spectrum [50].

1946, Peshkov
Observation of second sound [51].
1949, Abraham
No evidence for superﬂuidity of 3 He down to
1 K [52].

1953, Feynman
Many-body wavefunction ΨN (r1 , r2 , ..., rN ).
Microscopic understanding of roton [53, 54].
1956, Penrose and Onsagar
Long Range Order, estimate of quantum
depletion in liquid helium(nc ∼ 0.08n ) [55].
1957, Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieﬀer
BCS theory for superconductivity [56].
1961, Pitaevskii
Gross-Pitaevskii equation for macroscopic
wave function Ψ(r, t) [57].

1958, Schawlow and Townes
Invention of laser [58].
1959
Observation of phonon-roton spectrum using
inelastic neutron scattering [59, 60].
1961, Vinen
Observation of quantized circulation inhelium [61].

1974, Packard
Observation of vortex lattice [62].
1983, Reppy
Helium absorbed on Vycor showed dilute
Bose gas condensation [63, 64].
1995, Cornell and Wieman, Hulet,
Ketterle
Bose-Einstein condensation of dilute alkaligas [1, 2, 3].
1997, Ketterle
Interference between two dilute gas
Bose-Einstein condensates [6].
1998, Greytak and Kleppner
Bose-Einstein condensation of atomic
hydrogen [65].

20Spin-polarized hydrogen

Laser-cooled alkali atoms

1959, Hecht
Atomic hydrogen would remain a gas down
to absolute zero temperature [67]. (Also
Stwalley and Nosanov, Ref. [68].)
1975, Hänsch and Schawlow, Winelandand Dehmelt
Proposal of laser cooling [69, 70].
1978, Wineland, Dehmelt
Laser cooling of ions [71, 72].
1980, Silvera and Walraven
Stabilization of spin-polarized hydrogen [73].
1983, Hess
Phase-space density ∼ 1/50 [74].

1986, Hess
Proposal of magnetic trapping plus
evaporative cooling [75].
1988, Doyle, Greytak, and Kleppner
Evaporatively cooled hydrogen(∼ 3 mK) [76].

21

1985, Phillips, Hall
Slowing of atomic beam [77, 78].
1985, Phillips
Realization of a magnetic trap [79].
1985, Chu and Ashkin
Optical molasses [80].
1986, Chu and Ashkin
Dipole force trap [81].
1987, Dalibard, Chu, and Pritchard
Realization of Magneto-OpticalTrap(MOT) [82].
1988, Phillips
Observation of sub-Doppler temperature [83].
1988, Dalibard, Chu
Sisyphus cooling [84].

of atoms absorbed on the surface increases to the point where the three-body rate on thesurface becomes prohibitive.
Hess from MIT proposed an idea to circumvent this surface problem by introducing amagnetic trap. By using low-ﬁeld seeking states of hydrogen atoms, it was possible to trap
atoms at a local minimum of the magnetic ﬁeld. Moreover, thermally isolated atoms in amagnetic trap were the perfect candidate for evaporative cooling. Most energetic atoms
simply leave the trap from the edge, eﬀectively cooling what remains in the trap. The only
disadvantage was the heating due to the dipolar relaxation of low-ﬁeld seeking states, which
limits the maximum density (at the trap center) to a modest value.
By 1988, the MIT group had implemented these ideas and demonstrated the power of
evaporative cooling. They obtained 100 µK at a density only a factor of ﬁve(!) too low for
BEC [85]. Evaporative cooling was also performed in Amsterdam [86]. Both groups started
to construct laser sources for improved measurements of density and temperature of thecloud. At the same time, many aspects of dilute gas BEC in an inhomogeneous potential
were investigated in detail [87].
Laser-cooled alkalis
Nobel lectures given by Chu and Phillips in 1997 show that both laureates were motivatedby Ashkin’s work in late 70s (Chu, Cohen-Tannoudji, and Phillips shared the Nobel prizein physics that year [30, 31, 32]). Ashkin’s dream was to slow down an atomic beamusing the radiation pressure of a laser beam, and then to trap them using a dipole force
from focused laser beam(s), and he has proposed several schemes and done some proof-ofprinciple experiments with atomic beams [88, 89].
There was, however, a signiﬁcant diﬃculty: atom traps were too shallow. Phillips wrote“Ion traps were deep enough to easily trap ions having temperatures well above room
temperature, but none of the proposed neutral atom traps had depths of more than a few
kelvin. Signiﬁcant cooling was required before trapping would be possible, as Ashkin had
outlined in his paper [88], and it was with this idea that I began.” [32]Soon he realized laser cooling is the way to go. In laser cooling, momentum is transferredfrom a laser beam to the atoms during light scattering. This mechanical eﬀect of light issigniﬁcant — deceleration could be on the order of 105 times the gravitational acceleration.
By carefully selecting detuning of the light from the atomic resonance, atoms could becooled to temperatures corresponding to the linewidth of optical transitions, typically lessthan 1 mK. Ions were already laser cooled at the University of Washington and at the NBS
in Boulder. In the early 80s, interest for laser cooling of atoms was gradually increasing.
The late 80s were the heydays of laser-cooling. Ashkin’s original “dreams” were realized
one after another, and almost all the necessary tools were developed in this age. Scattering
force from laser beams were used to cool both atomic beams and vapor, and atom traps
were realized by using the dipole force or magnetic ﬁeld potential. But probably the most22

Towards the dilute gas BEC
1989, Pritchard
Rf-induced evaporation (proposal) [90].
1990, Wieman
Vapor-cell MOT [91].
1993, Ketterle and Pritchard
Dark SPOT MOT [92].
1995, Cornell and Wieman, Hulet, Ketterle
Observation of Bose-Einstein condensate [1, 2, 3].
1998, Greytak and Kleppner
Bose-Einstein condensation of atomic hydrogen [65].

important advance in this period was the invention of the magneto-optical trap (MOT),
which became the workhorse of the ultracold atom community.
The hybrid approach
Rapid progress of laser cooling and evaporative cooling in late 80s gave the impression ofthese techniques might lead directly to BEC. Especially, the observed temperature in opticalmolasses was much lower than the theoretical limit, indicating a violation of Murphy’s law inthe ﬁeld of laser cooling. However, by 1990, major limitations of laser cooling and trapping
were identiﬁed. Random momentum ﬂuctuations from the re-scattered photons limited theultimate temperature in optical molasses to about a factor of ten above the recoil limit [84].
Sub-recoil cooling techniques, especially in three dimensions, were harder to implement,
and required long cooling times. Trap loss arising from light assisted collisions limited thenumber of atoms in the trap [93], whereas absorption of scattered light resulted in an
outward radiation pressure, weakening the trapping potential and limiting the density [94].
The peak phase-space density in laser cooling experiments has increased hardly at all forseveral years since 1989, remaining around 10−5 . (See refs. [95, 96, 97, 98] for recent
progress.)
In the end, the successful approach was to use laser cooling only as pre-cooling formagnetic trapping and evaporative cooling. Again, I refer interested readers to the articles
by Cornell [33] and Ketterle [34]. There were several important advances towards achieving
eﬃcient evaporation. The Dark-SPOT trap was invented in MIT to enhance the density ofatoms in MOT, and rf-induced evaporation was proposed and successfully implemented inmagnetic traps. In 1995, three groups (JILA, Rice, MIT) observed BEC in three diﬀerent
species(87 Rb, Li, Na). Even in the year I am writing this thesis, this hybrid approach still
remains the only route to BEC except for hydrogen, where an eﬃcient laser source is notavailable for single-photon excitation.
The ﬁnal approach to BEC of hydrogen atoms needed more than a simple optimization23

of the cooling trajectory. In the case of hydrogen, the evaporation was forced by reducing theheight of the magnetic ﬁeld potential used for the conﬁnement. Atoms were evaporated overa magnetic ﬁeld saddlepoint at one end of the trap, and this scheme worked eﬃciently foratoms at higher temperature. However, at lower temperature, the eﬃciency of evaporation
dropped since the radial motion of the trap decoupled from the axial motion of the trap: theescape time for atoms with high radial energy becomes very long. By solving this problem
by implementing the rf-induced evaporation scheme that worked perfectly for alkali atoms,
hydrogen atoms were Bose-condensed in 1998.
Bose-Einstein condensates of 85 Rb atoms were produced in 2000 [99] based on a newtool established by condensate physics, i.e., Feshbach resonance [8]. Researchers in Boulder enhanced the elastic cross-section by tuning the scattering length of 85 Rb atoms withexternal magnetic ﬁelds. The tuning of the scattering length was crucial for observing acondensate, since the scattering length of 85 Rb atoms at low magnetic ﬁeld was negative,
prohibiting the production of large stable condensates.
Recently, metastable helium atoms were also Bose condensed [100, 101]. Atoms in themetastable state are characterized by their huge (∼ 20 eV) internal energy. The releaseof this energy through collisions, or Penning ionization, can be strongly suppressed for apolarized sample due to the conservation of spin. The creation of condensate by evaporative
cooling solely relies on this suppression. This condensate of atoms with large internal energy
opens up a possibility to do condensate experiments with single-atom sensitivity.

24Chapter 2

Experimental setup
In this chapter, I will brieﬂy describe the apparatus which was used for our studies of BoseEinstein condensates. The main apparatus consists of two parts: a dye-laser system anda stainless-steel chamber. Despite their rather old-fashioned appearance, these allowed us
to do experiments without major interruptions for more than ﬁve years (1996-2001). Thisamazing robustness is a proof of the dedication and skill of our predecessors. For detailed
description of their work, I refer the readers to the previous dissertations of Michael Joﬀe,
Kendall Davis, Marc-Oliver Mewes, Michael Andrews, and Dan Stamper-Kurn.
Another approach to BEC employed by many experimental groups around the world isbased on diode lasers and vapor cells. This type of setup is particularly suited for Rb, since
good diode laser sources are available and vapor pressure is high at room temperatures.
Review of this type of experimental apparatus can be found in Ref. [33] and references
therein.
The structure of this chapter is as follows: ﬁrst, an overview of the experiment is laidout focusing on experimental techniques used to achieve Bose-Einstein condensation. Next,
the structure of each part of the apparatus is introduced. This part is intended to serve
as a virtual lab tour, referring more to ﬁgures to provide an intuitive understanding of theexperiments.

2.1

Overview of the experimental setup

Following are the six major techniques used to produce (and observe) Bose-Einstein condensates. The principle of each technique is summarized and shown together with requirements
and important references. What is shown in the requirement sections mainly reﬂects thecase of sodium, and may not be applicable to other cases. Figure of merit of each coolingstep is summarized in the table at the end.

25

2.1.1

Zeeman slowing

Principle Laser cooling in the moving frame. Suppose atomic beam is illuminated bya red-detuned, counter propagating laser beam. Atoms with higher velocity scatter
more photons, resulting in lower velocity. By increasing atomic resonance frequency
by spatially varying magnetic ﬁeld, one can slow down the atomic beam almost torest.
Requirements Closed optical transition. Atomic beam and a circularly-polarized, reddetuned laser beam propagating in the opposite direction.
References Refs. [77, 102].

2.1.2

Dark-SPOT

Pr. By placing an atomic cloud in a quadrupole magnetic ﬁeld and illuminating it with six
red-detuned counter-propagating laser beams, one can achieve simultaneous Doppler
cooling and trapping (magneto-optical trap, MOT). Helicity of each beam is chosen in
a way so that any atom moved away from the center of the trap absorbs more photons
from the beam pushing atoms back to the center of the trap. One can regard the MOT
as six increasing-type Zeeman slowers attached in six directions. The density of the
MOT is limited by radiation pressure and light-assisted collisions. By transferring
atoms in an inner region to an other hyperﬁne state (“dark” state), these limitations
can be avoided.
Req. Six red-detuned, counter-propagating laser beams and quadrupole magnetic ﬁeld.
Repumping beam only illuminating outer part of the atomic ensemble.
Ref. Refs. [82, 103, 104] for MOT, Ref. [92] for Dark-SPOT.

2.1.3

Polarization-gradient cooling

Pr. Circularly-polarized, counter-propagating laser beams with the same helicity provides
spatially varying polarization, creating a periodic optical potential that diﬀers for different magnetic sub-levels. As atoms propagate through this periodic structure, they
are transferred between these states, each time losing kinetic energy corresponding to
the diﬀerence between these two potentials. “Dark” version of polarization gradientcooling is possible by limiting the fraction of atoms in the “bright” state.
Req. Six counter-propagating laser beams. No magnetic ﬁeld.
Ref. Ref. [84] for theory, Refs. [83, 105, 106] for experiments.

26

2.1.4Magnetic trap

Pr. Atoms in low-ﬁeld seeking states can be trapped at the spatial minimum of the magnetic
ﬁeld, like the center of a quadrupole ﬁeld. Loss due to spin-ﬂips at the magnetic ﬁeld
zero (Majorana ﬂops) can be avoided by employing non zero-crossing magnetic ﬁeld
conﬁgurations like the Ioﬀe-Pritchard trap.
Req. Ground-state magnetic moment of atoms. High power (electro-)magnets placed close
to the trapping region.
Ref. Refs. [5, 79]

2.1.5

Rf-induced evaporation

Pr. Atomic cloud can be evaporatively cooled by selectively removing energetic atoms froma trap and letting it re-thermalize through elastic collisions. Rf-induced spin ﬂips foratoms in a magnetic trap is eﬀective for achieving this cooling scheme.
Req. Tight-conﬁning magnetic trap. High stability of bias magnetic ﬁeld and precise rf
ramp.
Ref. Refs. [107, 108]

2.1.6

Imaging

Pr. Absorption imaging of ballistically expanded cloud was used for signature of condensation and momentum analyses. For in-situ imaging, phase shift of the probe beam
due to the index of refraction of the condensate was imaged by shifting the phaseof the unscattered probe beam by π/2 and overlapping it with the scattered light(phase-contrast imaging).
Req. For absorption imaging, instantaneous magnetic ﬁeld shut-oﬀ and synchronized digital camera. For phase-contrast imaging, a phase-plate is needed.
Ref. Refs. [1, 3] for absorption imaging for condensates, and Ref. [34] for phase-contrast
imaging.
Through these several steps of cooling, the density of the sodium gas is kept around1011 ∼ 1014 cm−3 , whereas the temperature is lowered by more than a factor of 108 . Typicalduration, number of atoms, density, temperature, and peak phase-space densities in eachcooling step are as follows.

27

Stage

t

N

Oven

ρ

T

Phase-space density

1014 cm−3

500 K

10−13

Zeeman slowing and Dark-SPOT

3s

1010

5 × 1011 cm−3

1 mK

10−7

Polarization-gradient cooling

5 ms

1010

1011 cm−3

100 µK

10−6

Magnetic trap (compression)

3.5 s

3 × 1091011 cm−3

160 µK

10−6

Rf-evaporation to BEC

22 s

107

1014 cm−3

500 nK107

The experimental apparatus used for realizing these cooling schemes is explained in thenext sections.

2.2

Laser system

A dye-laser based laser system is necessary for sodium experiment, since the closed transitionof sodium (F = 2 → F  = 3, see Fig. 2-1) lies in D2 line (589 nm) where no eﬃcient diodelaser source is available. More than ten near-resonant laser beams were necessary for laser
cooling, trapping and probing, and all of them were generated from a Coherent 899 ring
dye laser using Rhodamine 6G dye. In order to increase the eﬃciency of the dye, thedye pressure was increased by more than a factor of 3 (P ≤ 3 bar → 12 bar), and thenozzle for the dye jet was exchanged against a high-pressure nozzle (the old nozzle would
have withstood high pressure, but created turbulence). Together with high intensity ofthe pumping laser (typically 9W), 1.6 W of single-mode continuous-wave laser light was
obtained.
Combinations of acousto-optical modulators (AOM) and electro-optic modulators(EOM)
were used to generate all the necessary frequencies needed for experiments (Fig. 2-2). Amongthese, trapping, repumping, and slowing laser beams are important during the initial loading of atoms into the MOT. The frequency of the slowing laser beam is detuned by νslower =1 GHz from the closed transition to capture atoms from vcapture = λ νslower ∼ 600 m/s. The
repumping beam is tuned to the F = 1 → F  = 2 transition and used to bring “dark(F = 1)” atoms in the outer shell of the MOT back to the “bright (F = 2)” states. For
the next 5 ms, the trapping beam is detuned by another 8 MHz and used for polarization
gradient cooling. Other beams (as well as the quadrupole magnetic ﬁeld) are switched oﬀ
during the polarization gradient cooling and weak sidebands are added to the molasses
beam to substitute for the repumping beam.
Typically, at the beginning of each run, we spent more than an hour (often several
hours) optimizing the dye laser, optics on the laser table and around the main vacuum
chamber. This alignment procedure was based on the bad day-to-day stability. Recently,
it was signiﬁcantly improved by installing several key commercial products. First, thepumping laser was changed from an argon ion laser (Sabre from Coherent) to a doubled
Nd-YVO4 laser (Millennia from Spectra Physics). This change from gas laser to solid-state
28

F'=3
2
1
0

589 nm3P3/2
17.2cm-1

60MHz

3P1/2

36MHz
17MHz

2
1

189MHzF=23S1/2

1.77 GHz
F=1

Figure 2-1: Main optical transitions of sodium. Shown are the total angular momentum F
and energy separation between the states in frequency units. The F = 2 → F  = 3 closed
transition is used for slowing and trapping. The lower hyperﬁne state (F = 1) is used forstoring atoms during the dark-SPOT trap phase. A laser beam tuned to F = 1 → F  = 2
transition is used to bring F = 1 “dark” atoms back into F = 2 “bright” states.

Spectra Physics
Millenia:10W, 532nm

Coherent 899:
1.6W, 589nm

Repump:+1710(+1620)
Locking
cell:
+35
-35

Trap:-20
Molasses:-28 (SB:+1710)-180

F=1 probe:~ +1710F=2 probe:~0

Bragg:-90

Slower:-1000 (SB:+710)

Figure 2-2: Frequencies of beams generated from the dye-laser system. Frequencies relative
to the F = 2 → F  = 3 closed transition are shown. A doubled Nd-YVO4 laser is used toexcite dye laser based on Rodamine 6G dye. The frequency of the dye laser is locked to areference cavity, which is locked to the Doppler-free absorption signal from a sodium cell.
All the frequencies, including the repumping beam which is 1.7 GHz away from the closed
transition, are generated by acousto-optical modulators (AOM). Electro-optic modulators(EOM) are used to generate frequency sidebands (indicated as “SB”).

29

Liq N2 cooled
cold plate
T=380oC

φ ~4mmDifferential
pumping tube

T=350oC
To slower
Two 5gampules

Shutter(flag)-7

P~1 x10 Torro

T=260 C

To ionpump

Figure 2-3: Schematics of the oven part.

pumping laser resulted in signiﬁcant improvement in day-to-day stability of the dye laser
beam proﬁle. Secondly, optical ﬁbers were installed instead of running laser beams throughfree space for 10 meters between the laser and the vacuum chamber. This installation haschanged the description of all the optics alignment from “necessary” to “optional.”

2.3

Vacuum chamber

The following three ﬁgures (Fig. (2-3)-(2-5)) are the schematics of oven, slower, and trapping
part of the vacuum chamber. Interested readers are encouraged to read detailed descriptionin Michael Joﬀe’s thesis [109]. (However, there are a few modiﬁcations. The “cold screen”
was removed, and the beam shutter is now placed at the oven side of the cold plate. Theoven is now elbow-shaped as shown in Fig. 2-3, and more recently, a “cup” is attached at
the bottom to shorten the time it takes for us to exchange sodium.)
Our oven (Fig. 2-3) is typically operated at 260◦ C, and the nozzle area is kept at higher
temperature to prevent clogging . We load 10 g of sodium each time, and it lasts about
300 hours of running (Between the runs, the oven is cooled down to 110◦ C). Most of thesodium atoms actually do not make it to the trap but simply pile up around the liquid
N2 cooled cold plate. Every half a year, we disassemble the entire oven part and clean itout. Both keeping the oven pressure at or below 1 × 10−7 Torr and achieving a diﬀerential
pumping factor of 104 through the 15-cm long, φ = 4 mm tube are necessary for maintaining
1 × 10−11 Torr in the main chamber, which is mandatory for 22-second evaporation. For
this, the cold plate as well as the diﬀerential pumping tube was cooled down by liquid N2 .
This liquid N2 cooling can be certainly avoided by improving the design of the diﬀerential
pumping stage, and indeed new chambers developed in the next labs do not need liquid N2

30

Gate
valve

Liq N2 cooled Window
beam catcher (kept warm)
tube
lens λ /4
plate
Trapping
chamberCurrent I ~ 35 A
Cooling water flux~100 ml /min(~700G)

Atomicbeamfrom oven(~0G)

Solenoid(1/8” tubing)Compensation coil

Slowinglaser beam
To Ion Ti
pump filament (~100mW)

Figure 2-4: Schematics of the slower part. A high ﬂux of 1012 slow atoms per second wasachieved with our increasing-ﬁeld type slower.

(a) View from the oven side(b) Side view
Trapping
beam

Repumpingbeam(To camera)

Trapping
beam

Glass platewith dot
Edge
mirror

Coils(Slowerlaser beam)(Slow atomic
beam)

Iris
Trapping
beam-11

P~1x10 Torr

(probe beam)

Figure 2-5: Schematic of the main trapping chamber. Both view from the oven (a) as wellas the side view (b) are shown. The iris at the bottom is used to block the retro-reﬂectionof the repumping beam.

cooling. The mechanical shutter is activated by sending in electric current to a relay placed
inside the oven chamber. Compared to the design based on a mechanical feedthrough, thisdesign has a certain advantage (for example, it is free from any backlashes which come withmost of the feedthroughs), but it is less easy to service.
The atomic beam from the oven is decelerated by an increasing-ﬁeld type Zeeman
slower [110], which drives the F = 2, mF = −2 → F  = 3, mF  = −3 transition. The
design of the slower is shown in Fig. 2-4. The typical power of the slowing laser beam isabout 100 mW, and the diameter of the slowing laser beam is more than 3 cm at the view
port and is focused down to the nozzle. The ﬁnal velocity of the slowed atomic beam is∼ 30 m/s, which corresponds to a kinetic energy of 1 K and well within the capture rangeof the MOT. The high ﬂux of our slower (∼ 1012 atoms/s at 100 m/s and ∼ 1011 atoms/s
at 30 m/s, see [111]) enables us to load more than 1010 atoms in 1 ∼ 2 s.
31

Gradient(clover-leaf) coils
250A = ~100G/cm

Penny window
T rapped atoms(Side 1)

(Side 2)

(horizontal
MOT beam)

Curvaturecoil(insert)Anti-bias coil
“Bucket” viewport

Figure 2-6: Ioﬀe-Pritchard trap with clover-leaf design. Radial linear conﬁnement is produced by “clover-leaf” coils, whereas axial quadratic conﬁnement is produced by Helmholtz“curvature” pairs. “Anti-bias” (Helmholtz pairs pointing in the opposite direction) is used
to lower the bias ﬁeld at the trapping center to increase the eﬀective radial curvature at thebottom of the trap.

The rest of the cooling and imaging is done in the main trapping chamber(Fig. 2-5).
Horizontal ports are used for slowing and two independent MOT beams. All of the four
diagonal view ports are used for the (retro-reﬂected) MOT beams, and vertical view ports
are mainly used for imaging. The repumping beam (∼ 30 mW) is overlapped with one ofthe diagonal MOT beams by an edge mirror. The diameter of the MOT and repumping
beams are more than 3 cm, and the intensity of each beam is on the order of the saturation
intensity. The dark-SPOT trap was achieved by passing the repumping beam through a
glass plate with a black dot, which was imaged into the trap center with an image size of∼ 10 mm. Alignment of each beam is optimized by visually inspecting the shape of thetrapped cloud and also the expansion during polarization-gradient cooling. The atomic
cloud is quite sensitive to minute change in alignment of the MOT and repumping beams,
and has allowed the development of several mysterious “voo-doos.” This is illustrated by
the fact that we quite often gain in the number of atoms in the MOT by unblocking theretro-reﬂection of the repumping beam and letting it back into the trap in an uncontrolledmanner.
Tight conﬁnement of the magnetic trap can be realized by placing electro-magnets close
to the trapping region. However, installing high-power electro-magnets inside the vacuum
chamber without compromising ultra-high vacuum is a diﬃcult task. To get around this,we use “bucket” view ports, which are recessed closer to the trapping region (about 1/2 inch
away, see Fig. 2-5(a) and also Fig. 2-6). A tight-conﬁning, DC magnetic trap was realized
by using a Ioﬀe-Prichard ﬁeld conﬁguration with clover-leaf coil design [5, 34]. Since thedetails of this magnetic trap is well described in previous dissertations [25, 112], I will
only present schematic ﬁgures and typical operating conditions. Strong linear conﬁnement32

CatchingPS(50 -> 0A)

Curv. 2Curv. PS
(140A)

Curv. 1
IGBT
switchR~1 Ω

AntiBias 2

IGBT
switchMOT PS(~20A)MOSFET
switchAntiBias 1

Figure 2-7: Circuit diagram of the high-current setup. Curv. 1 and Anti-bias 1 occupy
one side of the trap, whereas curv. 2 and Anti-bias 2 occupy the other side of the trap.
Resistor-diode pair, which ensures smooth shut-oﬀ of the trap can be replaced by varistors.

(Br ∼ 100 G/cm at 250 A) in the radial direction is obtained from the ﬁeld from clover-leaf
coils, whereas modest quadratic conﬁnement in the axial direction (Bz ∼ 120 G/cm 2 at 140
A) is available through Helmholtz coils (“curvature” coils). The linear radial conﬁnement
becomes quadratic at the bottom of the trap, and the ﬁeld curvature is approximately
proportional to Br2 /B0 , where B0 is the bias ﬁeld at the bottom of the trap. By carefullyaligning another Helmholtz pair in the other direction (“Anti-Bias” coil) and running current
in series with the curvature coils, we can achieve a stable low bias ﬁeld (B0 ∼ 1 G) at theposition of the trap. For sodium atoms in the weak ﬁeld seeking state in the lower hyperﬁnemanifold (F = 1, mF = −1), this produces a radial trapping frequency ωr of 2π × 230 Hz,
and axial trapping frequency ωz of 2π × 17 Hz.
The circuit diagram for the magnetic trap is shown in Fig. 2-7. Typically, one 5 kW
( = 20 V × 250 A) DC power supply is used to run current through the clover-leaf coils,
and one more unit is used to run current through both the curvature coils and anti-bias
coils. The stability, ripple, and regulations of these switching power supplies are typically
better than 0.1% in current control mode. Fast shut-oﬀ (∼ 20 µs) of the trap is ensured by
the combination of an IGBT switch and a resistor-diode pair, which dissipates the energy
stored in the coils. Modiﬁcation to the trapping potential is done by either controlling thepower supply with an analog signal, or applying additional current to speciﬁc coils. For
example, additional 50 A of current is applied to the curvature coils during the initial stageof the magnetic trap loading to reduce the tight conﬁnement in the radial direction and33

(a) M=2 absorption (top) imaging(b) M=8 phase-contrast (top) imaging

λ /4 phase
plate

CCD
camera
F=1 -> F’=2
(F=2 -> F’=3)
Probe beam

M=2
imagingplane

CCD
cameraOff-resonant
probe beam

Figure 2-8: Schematic of absorption and phase-contrast imaging.

to achieve better mode-matching with the quasi-spherical MOT. Even the MOT is realized
by constituting anti-Helmholtz coil using one coil from the curvature Helmholtz pair andanother coil from the anti-bias pair.
We use time-of-ﬂight absorption imaging and in-situ phase-contrast imaging for analyzing condensates. Typical setups are shown in Fig. 2-8. For most of the analysis, thenumber of atoms in speciﬁc momentum or spin (spatially separated by Stern-Gerlach magnet) states was determined from absorption images by integrating optical densities. Phasecontrast imaging is used when (a rapid sequence of) non-destructive images are necessary
or in-situ images are needed for “micro-surgery” of condensates. Detailed description of ourquantitative analysis of images can be found in Refs. [25, 34]

34

Chapter 3

Bragg scattering from a
Bose-Einstein condesate
This chapter summarizes the Bragg scattering from a Bose-Einstein condensate that wasreported in the following publication:• J. Stenger, S. Inouye, A.P. Chikkatur, D.M. Stamper-Kurn, D.E. Pritchard, and W.
Ketterle, “Bragg Spectroscopy of a Bose-Einstein condensate,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 82
4569 (1999). Included in Appendix C.

3.1

Linewidth of an “atom laser”

What is the easiest way to determine the linewidth of laser light? The answer strongly
depends on what is available in the lab, but one simple solution would be to use a diﬀraction
grating. Due to the wave nature of light, the beam is diﬀracted only in the direction which
satisﬁes the Bragg condition. The width of the angle is proportional to the linewidth ∆λ andinversely proportional to the lattice spacings D. (∆θ ∼ n∆λ/D, where n is the diﬀraction
order).
The same simple idea can be applied to determine the momentum distribution of a condensate. One can drop a condensate onto a mechanical grating and measure the diﬀraction
eﬃciency as a function of the diﬀraction angle. However, installation of a mechanical grating
inside the main vacuum chamber is not an ideal thing to do, since it requires considerable
time to re-establish the ultra high vacuum that is essential for evaporative cooling. Also,
the interaction time will be limited since any contact with its surface will result in the lossof atoms — atoms will either be heated up by the surface or stick to the surface.
Light gratings are an ideal tool for analyzing ultracold atoms. Two counter-propagating,oﬀ-resonant light beams produce an intensity grating whose periodicity is half the wavelength of the light. Instead of moving a condensate relative to the grating, we can move thegrating by applying a small detuning between the two beams. The atoms in a condensate at
35

Figure 3-1: Typical Bragg resonance curve for trapped condensates. The fraction of atoms
coupled out by the Bragg transition was determined from time-of-ﬂight images, where recoiling atoms (lower spots) were clearly separated from condensates at rest (upper spots).
It showed a narrow resonance when the diﬀerence frequency ν between the two laser beams
was varied around the recoil frequency ν0 of the atoms.

rest absorb momentum from the periodic structure and start to move. The scattering takes
place only if the velocity of atoms viewed from a moving frame of the grating is the same
before and after the scattering. This is due to the conservation of energy in the moving
frame and corresponds to the Bragg condition for matter waves. This resonance conditionis sensitive to the initial motion of atoms and is broadened by the Doppler eﬀect.
The eﬃciency of this diﬀraction can be determined by taking time-of-ﬂight absorption
images just after applying the “Bragg pulse” (the counter-propagating beams) to the condensate. The eﬃciency shows a resonance curve as a function of detuning between the two
beams, which determines the velocity of the moving standing wave. Fig. 3-1 shows a typical
Bragg resonance curve for trapped condensates, together with the geometry of the experiment. The direction of the standing wave was chosen to be perpendicular to the long axisof the condensate, which was horizontal in the image. This direction of momentum transfer
was chosen to maximize the Heisenberg-limited momentum width, which will be discussed
later. Atoms in a condensate are diﬀracted downward in the image by the standing wave
moving in the same direction.

3.2

Bragg scattering as a two-photon resonance

It is important to notice that this diﬀraction can be also viewed as a stimulated Ramanprocess between two momentum states. Absorption of a photon from a high frequency
36

(a)

k1

ν2

ν1
(b)

~10MHz

np

q

k2
(c)

(d)

2s
HFS2

ns

HFS1

1s

Figure 3-2: Schemes for high-resolution velocimetry using two-photon resonances. The
momentum transfer (q and energy transfer hν due to the two-photon transition are given by
wavevector and frequency diﬀerences between the two beams, (q = ((k1 −(k2 ) = 2k sin(θ/2)
and hν = h(ν1 −ν2 ), where θ is the angle between the two laser beams (a). Narrow linewidthof the transition between diﬀerent hyperﬁne states (Raman transition, (b)) and transition
to a metastable excited states (c) were used for resolving small Doppler broadening due tothe initial momentum spread of atoms. Bragg transition connects two momentum states ofthe same ground state (d) and is thus less sensitive to ﬂuctuations of external stray ﬁelds.

beam followed by a stimulated emission to the other beam results in momentum and energy
transfer to atoms in a condensate. This process only happens when it satisﬁes conservationof energy and momentum i.e., when the detuning of the two beams corresponds to the recoil
frequency of atoms ωrec = q 2 /2M , where q is the momentum transferred to the atoms.
Bragg scattering of atoms from a light grating was ﬁrst demonstrated in 1988 [113] andhas been used to manipulate atomic samples in atom interferometers [114], in deBroglie wave
frequency shifters [115], and also to couple out or manipulate a Bose-Einstein condensate[116]. Small angle Bragg scattering, called recoil-induced resonances, has been used forthermometry of laser-cooled atoms [117]. Here, we use Bragg scattering as a spectroscopic
technique to probe properties of the condensate.
Bragg scattering is not the only method that uses two-photon transitions for achieving
subrecoil momentum resolution (Fig. 3-2). Raman transition between two ground-level hyperﬁne states was used to prepare a sample of atoms with a velocity spread of ∼ 0.01 k [118].
A Doppler sensitive two-photon transition to a metastable state was used to identify the
momentum spread of a Bose-Einstein condensate of hydrogen atoms [65]. Systematic effects like ac-stark shift is a major concern for using these optical transitions that involve
diﬀerent internal states. In the case of the Raman resonance, the eﬀect of the ac-stark
shift was avoided by using relatively large detuning from the atomic resoance: the ac-Stark
shift for magnetic ﬁeld insensitive transitions vanishes in the limit of ∆ large compared to37Normalized Signal [a.u.]

x 0.2
x 0.5

-60

-40

-20

0

20

40

Frequency ν−ν0 [kHz]60

Figure 3-3: Bragg resonances for a trapped condensate (circles) and after 3 ms time-ofﬂight (triangles). For comparison, the momentum distributions of the ground state of thetrapping potential (dotted curve) and of a 1 µK cold, thermal cloud (dashed curve) areindicated. The heights of the curves for the trapped condensate and the ground state
momentum distribution are scaled down as indicated in the ﬁgure. Figure taken from Ref.
[17].

the hyperﬁne splitting. The Bragg resonance used here is completely insensitive to theseexternal ﬁelds since both momentum states share the same internal state.

3.3

Finite-size broadening and eﬀects of the mean-ﬁeld

Fig. 3-3 shows typical spectra, taken both for a trapped condensate and after 3 ms time of
ﬂight. The rms width of the resonance for the ballistically expanding cloud is 20 kHz, which
is much narrower than the 65 kHz wide distribution of a thermal cloud at the BEC transition
temperature (1 µK). Indeed, this sudden transition in velocity distribution in time-of-ﬂight
is the most popular method for identifying the phase transition. However, the signatureof BEC observed by Bragg scattering is much more dramatic — the condensate resonanceis more than 30 times narrower than the one of the thermal cloud. It is also important
to notice that this width is even narrower than the momentum width of the ground stateof the harmonic trap. Narrower momentum width indicates larger coherence length. Thisrequirement from the Heisenberg uncertainty relation shows that Bragg scattering can beused to determine the coherence length of a condensate.
Repulsive interaction between atoms shifts and broadens the Bragg resonance, and precise determination of these values is essential for extracting the coherence length from theresonance width. Precisely speaking, the resonance condition is satisﬁed when the detuning
between the two beams match the energy needed for exciting quasi-particle excitation with
momentum q. For a weakly interacting homogeneous condensate, the dispersion relationof the quasi-particle excitation has the following form given by Bogoliubov:

38

ν=



νrec 2 + 2νrec ρU0 /h(3.1)

where ρ U0 = ρ 4π 2 asc /M is the chemical potential of a condensate and hνrec = 2 q 2 /2M
is the recoil energy associated with the momentum q. If momentum transferred is smaller
than the speed of sound (times the mass of atoms) of the condensate, the dispersion islinear (phonon excitation). For momentum larger than the speed of sound, the dispersion
is quadratic and shifted up by amount equal to the chemical potential of the condensate.
 qν=where cs =



2π cs

q

M cs

νrec + ρU0 /h

q

M cs

(3.2)

ρU0 /M is the speed of sound in the condensate.

Our Bragg spectroscopy probes the free-particle regime, since the excitation by the Bragg
transition has larger momentum than the speed of sound of the condensate. The resonancefrequency shift is proportional to the local density of the condensate. Calculations show thatthe inhomogeneous density distribution due to the parabolic potential shifts the resonanceby 4ρ0 U0 /h and broadens the resonance to an rms width of ∆νρ = 8/147ρ0 U0 /h. Since
the chemical potential of our condensate is on the order of several kHz, this shift andbroadening should be on the order of few kHz.
Both the (Doppler) broadening due to ﬁnite momentum width and mean-ﬁeld interaction
contribute to the resonance curve. While the exact calculation of the line shape requires
detailed knowledge of the excitation wavefunctions, the total line shift and rms width canbe calculated using sum rules and Fermi’s Golden Rule. Thus, it can be rigourously shownthat the total line shift remains 4ρ0 U0 /h, while the rms width of the resonance becomes∆ν =∆νp2 + ∆νρ2 which is the quadrature sum of the Doppler and mean-ﬁeld widths.

The narrow resonance of the trapped condensate was studied as a function of the condensate density and size. Fig. 3-4a demonstrates the linear dependence of the frequency
shift on the density. The slope of the linear ﬁt corresponds to (0.54 ± 0.07)ρ0 U0 /h, in agreement with the prediction of 4ρ0 U0 /7h ∼ 0.57ρ0 U0 /h. In ﬁg 3-4b, the expected widths dueto the mean ﬁeld energy and the ﬁnite size of the condensate are shown for the two diﬀerent
trapping frequencies studied. The expected width due to the ﬁnite size of the condensate
was determined by performing a Fourier transform to the wavefunction of a condensate
and integrating it over the dimensions perpendicular to the momentum transfer [119]. The
comparison between the measured resonance width after subtraction of the contribution of
the mean ﬁeld and the calculated eﬀective rms width for the distribution, ∆px ∼ 1.58/x0 ,shows excellent agreement, indicating that the coherence length of the condensate is equal
to its size.

39

Center ν−ν0 [kHz]

a)

4
3
2
1
0

0

1

2

3

14

-3

4

5

Peak Density [10 cm ]Width [kHz]

4

b)

3
2
1
0
0

1

2

3

14

-3

4

5

Corrected Width [kHz]Peak Density [10 cm ]
3

c)

2

1

0
6

8

10

12

14

16

Size x0 [µm]Figure 3-4: Bragg spectroscopy of a trapped condensate. Line shifts (a) and rms width (b)are shown for various densities and sizes of the condensate using two diﬀerent radial trapping
frequencies, νx = (195 ± 20) Hz (circles), and νx = (95 ± 20) Hz. The lines in (b) show thecontributions of the mean-ﬁeld energy (dashed) and due to the ﬁnite size (dotted, for bothtrapping frequencies) and their quadrature sum (solid lines). (c) displays the width after
subtraction of the contribution of the mean ﬁeld and the ﬁnite pulse duration and comparesit with the prediction for the momentum uncertainty due to the ﬁnite size. The error bars
are 1σ errors of the Gaussian ﬁts to the data. Figure taken from Ref. [17].

40

(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)

Figure 3-5: Kapitza-Dirac diﬀraction of a Bose-Einstein condensate. A red-detuned, standing wave of light was applied to condensates during time-of ﬂight. The duration of the pulse
was 0.37 µs, which was factor of four shorter than the inverse of the recoil frequency(1.6 µs).
The density of the cloud at the time of diﬀraction was varied by changing the timing of
the pulse. The delays of the pulse after the release of the cloud were 1 (a), 2 (b), 3 (c),6 (d), and 10 (e) ms, which corresponds to the density of 1.2 (a), 0.37 (b) , 0.17 (c), 0.04(d), and , 0.02 (e) ×1014 cm−3 . The total time-of-ﬂight was 20 ms. The intensity of eachbeam was 200mW/cm2 , and the detuning was 1.7 GHz. The ﬁeld of view of each image is
15 mm × 1.7 mm.

3.4

Higher order Bragg scattering

Higher order Bragg diﬀraction could be ideal for high precision velocimetry, since it reduces
the eﬀect of inhomogenious mean-ﬁeld, which was contributing to about one half of thelinewidth in the measurement shown in Fig. 3-4. The resonance condition for nth order
Bragg diﬀraction is2 2
2(k + nq)2 + ρU0 −
k
(3.3)
nω =
2M
2M
where q is the momentum transfer. The condition simpliﬁes to:
ω=

1 ρU0
k
q + nωrec +
M
n 

(3.4)

Both the shift and the width due to the mean ﬁeld decrease as 1/n as the order of Bragg
scattering is increased.
Bragg spectroscopy using higher order Bragg scattering was pursued with the same
experimental setup, but scaling the detuning between the two beams by a factor of n(“nωrec ” in Eq. (3.4)). However, larger intensity and a longer pulse length were necessary
for achieving similar diﬀraction eﬃciency, and it has resulted in severe loss of atoms due
to spontaneous emission [116]. The transition probability for nth order Bragg diﬀraction is
given by [114]Pn = sin2Ω2n π/2nt42n−1 ∆n ωrec n−1 [(n − 1)!]2
41

(3.5)

where t is the length of the pulse. Eq. (3.5) is valid for detunings ∆ much larger than
the single beam Rabi frequency Ω, and the linewidth of the optical transition, Γ. The
probability for spontaneous emission varies as I/∆2 . The condition for realizing higher
order Bragg scattering requires that I/∆ be increased. Therefore, higher intensity I andlarger detuning ∆ are necessary for keeping the Bragg diﬀraction rate higher than that of
spontaneous emission.
For higher momentum transfer, collisional dephasing also starts to play a role, since
the rate of collisions is proportional to the relative velocities between atoms. In order toillustrate this eﬀect, a short (0.37µs) standing wave laser pulse was applied to a condensate
during time of ﬂight and the maximum diﬀraction order was determined as a function ofdensity. The density of the cloud was varied by changing the timing of the pulse.
Fig. 3-5 shows the density dependence of the number of diﬀraction orders. Third orderdiﬀraction (6k momentum transfer) was barely visible in the highest density cloud, whereas
7th order diﬀraction (14k) was observed with the lowest density cloud. The two counterpropagating beams were parallel to the long axis of the condensate. Both the eﬀect ofDoppler broadening due to the motion in the axial direction and the eﬀect of the mean ﬁeld
should be negligible in this experiment since the inverse of the pulse length (430 kHz) is farlarger than those frequency widths.
This elastic scattering between atoms in diﬀerent momentum states was nicely imaged
in time-of-ﬂight pictures taken after coupling out a fraction of atoms by Bragg diﬀraction.
Fig. 3-6 shows the collision between the condensate at rest (lower black dot) and Bragg
diﬀracted atoms (upper spot). Since the velocity of atoms after the Bragg diﬀraction is wellwithin the s-wave regime(∼ 6 cm/s) the momentum distribution of collided atoms shows asphere in momentum space. This technique was used to study the suppression of elastic
collision in the condensate due to superﬂuidity [23]. The observed “s-wave halo” is diﬀerent
from the “spontaneous emission circle” observed when condensate was illuminated with asingle laser beam [116]. The number of atoms in the halo decreased as we reduced thenumber of Bragg diﬀracted atoms by changing the detuning between the two laser beams.

3.5

Other measurements of the coherence length of condensates

Several experiments have been performed to conﬁrm the phase-coherence of a Bose-Einsteincondensate [6, 17, 120, 121, 122]. Similarities and diﬀerences between these experiments
were summarized in Ref. [25] from the view point of “near-ﬁeld” and “far-ﬁeld” measurement of the coherence length. In the “near-ﬁeld” (or real space) measurements of thecondensate phase, the phase of the wavefunction at two points were compared to each otherby overlapping parts of the same condensate. This includes the interference between two
Bose-Einstein condensate observed in 1997 [6], interference using Kapiza-Dirac pulses [120],42

Figure 3-6: Observation of an elastic collision between the condensate (lower black dot)and Bragg diﬀracted atoms (upper spot). The image was taken after a time-of-ﬂight of 30
ms, and shows the velocity distribution after the collision. The products of the collision are
distributed over a sphere in momentum space, leading to the observed halo. The hight of
the image is 3.2 mm.

measurement of the spatial correlation function by rf-outcoupling [121], and the “autocorrelation” experiment by Bragg interferometry [122]. These measurements are sensitive
to any local dislocations or discontinuities in phase proﬁles. In the Bragg spectroscopy
explained here, phases of the wavefunction across the whole condensate was sampled atonce, corresponding to observing the matter wave in the far ﬁeld (or in momentum space).
This method is not suited for identifying local structures in the phase proﬁle, but ideal
for identifying atoms in diﬀerent “modes,” or quasi-particle excitations in the condensate.
Suppose a condensate with vortex excitation is subjected to these studies. The “near-ﬁeld”
method will reveal the dislocation in the spatial phase proﬁle, whereas Bragg spectroscopy
detects atoms at ﬁnite velocities due to the ﬂow ﬁeld of a vortex.
Small angle Bragg scattering, where the transferred momentum is smaller than the
speed of sound in the condensate, was used to probe the structure factor of the condensate
in the small momentum limit [22]. The strength of the Bragg transition is proportional
to the correlation of the scattered electrical ﬁeld, < ES† (r1 , t1 )ES (r2 , t2 ) > [123]. Since theamplitude of the scattered electrical ﬁeld is proportional to the local density, the strength of
the two-photon transition is now proportional to < ρ(r1 , t1 )ρ(r2 , t2 ) >, which is the Fouriertransform of the structure factor of the condensate.

43Chapter 4

Superradiant Rayleigh scatteringfrom a Bose-Einstein condensate
This chapter describes the superradiant Rayleigh scattering from a Bose-Einstein condensate
that was reported in the following publication:• S. Inouye, A.P. Chikkatur, D.M. Stamper-Kurn, J. Stenger, D.E. Pritchard, and
W. Ketterle, “Superradiant Rayleigh Scattering from a Bose-Einstein Condensate,”
Science 285, 571 (1999). Included in Appendix D.

4.1

Directional matter waves produced by spontaneous scatterings“Bose condensates scatter light diﬀerently.” This was what one of my colleagues came up
with, when we were trying to summarize our work on superradiance with a single phrase.
Another colleague of mine said “Try this at home!” when he was explaining this phenomenon to peer experimentalists. These two quotes show one of the main characteristicsof this phenomenon: simplicity. Only a single oﬀ-resonant laser beam and a condensate areneeded to observe this phenomenon. But the physics behind it is quite rich and requires a
deep understanding of coherence and stimulation.
The most striking diﬀerence between normal Rayleigh scattering and superradiant Rayleighscattering is the directionality of the scattering. The geometry of the setup is shown in Fig.
4-1. An elongated Bose-Einstein condensate was illuminated with a single oﬀ-resonant laser
beam, traveling perpendicular to the long axis of the condensate (Fig. 4-1a). Atoms in acondensate absorb a photon from the laser beam and spontaneously emit a photon, receiving recoil momentum and energy (Fig. 4-1b). The direction of the spontaneous emission
was expected to be random, leading to momentum diﬀusion and heating of the atomic
cloud. This was conﬁrmed by observing the momentum distribution of scattered atoms
by taking time-of-ﬂight images after the light pulse. Indeed, when the polarization of the
44

(a)

(b)

BEC

Light

(c)

Polarization(d)(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

Figure 4-1: Observation of superradiant Rayleigh scattering. An elongated condensate was
illuminated with a single oﬀ-resonant laser beam (a). The atomic momenta after the lightscattering lie on a sphere centered at (k (b). The distribution shows the dipole patterndepending on the polarization of incoming beam (c). Shown in (d) are absorption images
after 20 ms time-of-ﬂight after their exposure to a laser pulse of variable duration. Whenthe polarization was parallel to the long axis, normal Rayleigh scattering was observed(1-3). For perpendicular polarization, collective (superradiant) scattering lead to photons
scattered predominantly along the axial direction, and atoms at 45 degrees(4-6), and evolved
to repeated scattering for longer laser pulses (5,6). The pulse durations were 25 (1), 100(2,3), 35 (4), 75 (5), 100 µs (6). The ﬁeld of view of each image is 2.8 × 3.3 mm. The
scattering angle appears larger than 45 degrees due to the angle of observation. All images
use the same gray scale except for (3), which enhances the small signal of Rayleigh scatteredatoms in (2). Figure taken from Ref. [18].

incident beam was parallel to the long axis of the condensate, the momentum distribution
was isotropic, modiﬁed by the dipolar emission pattern(Fig. 4-1d(1-3)). However, when thepolarization of the laser beam was perpendicular to the long axis of the condensate, highly
directional beams of atoms were observed in time-of-ﬂight images.
The observation of directional atomic beams strongly suggests the build-up of a highcontrast matter wave grating in the condensate when these scattered atoms still overlappedwith the condensate at rest. This build-up of the matter wave grating can be easily understood by following each step of the oﬀ-resonant Rayleigh scattering (Fig. 4-2). When acondensate is exposed to a laser beam with wave vector k0 , it absorbs a photon from thelaser beam and spontaneously emits a photon with wave vector ki , generating an atom withrecoil momentum  Kj = (k0 − ki )(Fig. 4-2a,b). Because light propagates at a velocity
about 10 orders of magnitude faster than the atomic recoil velocity, the recoiling atoms

45

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Spontaneousemission

Recoiled atom

Diffraction bymatterwave
grating

matterwave
grating(e)Strongermatterwave
grating

BEC
light

Nj = 0....N j = 2....N j = 1....

Figure 4-2: Build-up of matter wave grating inside a condensate due to light scattering.
A condensate illuminated by a single laser beam (a) scatters a photon spontaneously (b).
The scattered atom interferes with the condensate at rest and forms a matter wave grating(c). Diﬀraction of light by the matter wave grating (d) transfers more atoms into the recoil
mode, leading to higher diﬀraction eﬃciency (e). As a result, the number of atoms in therecoil mode shows exponential growth.

remain with the volume of the condensate long after the photons have left and aﬀect subsequent scattering events. They interfere with the condensate at rest to form a moving matterwave grating of wave vector Kj , which diﬀracts the laser beam into the phase-matching direction, i.e. the same direction ki again(Fig. 4-2c,d). This diﬀraction is a self-amplifying
process because every diﬀracted photon creates another recoiling atom that increases theamplitude of the matter wave grating (Fig. 4-2e).
Because each scattered photon creates a recoiling atom, the diﬀraction eﬃciency of thegratings gives the growth rate of each matter wave mode. The diﬀraction eﬃciency is
proportional to the square of the depth of the density modulation, and therefore to thenumber of atoms in the recoil mode Nj . This implies an exponential growth of Nj , as longas one can neglect the depletion of the condensate at rest. The angular dependence of thegain can be understood as follows. Given the same contrast of the grating, one can showthat the intensity of the scattered light in the phase-matching direction does not dependon the shape of the condensate. However, the total intensity of the scattered light, or therate of scattering, is largest when the phase-matching direction of photon emission is along
the long axis of the condensate, since the condition is fulﬁlled over a wider solid angle dueto the ﬁnite size of the condensate.
The gain equation for the number of atoms in recoil mode j can be either obtained fromthe semi-classical treatment shown above, or from a fully quantum mechanical treatment
based on second-quantization and Fermi’s Golden Rule.
Ṅj = R N0

sin2 θj Ω (Nj + 1) .
8π/3 j(4.1)

Here, R is the rate for single-atom Rayleigh scattering, which is proportional to thelaser intensity. The angular term reﬂects the dipolar emission pattern with θj being the46

angle between the polarization of the incident light and the direction of emission. The solid
angle factor Ωj ∼ λ2 /Aj depends on the angle of photon emission through Aj , which is the
cross-sectional area of the condensate perpendicular to the direction of photon emission.
Eq. 4.1 now describes both the normal Rayleigh scattering at a constant rate ΣṄj = RN0
when Nj

1 and exponential gain of the jth recoil mode once Nj becomes non-negligible.

Initially, the angular distribution of the scattered light follows the single-atom spontaneous(dipolar) emission pattern but can become highly anisotropic when stimulation by theatomic ﬁeld becomes important.

4.2

Dicke superradiance — emerging coherenceThis build-up of coherence in an atomic ensemble through spontaneous photon emission
is analogous to the superradiance discussed by Dicke [124, 125, 126]. He ﬁrst considered
spontaneous emission from two excited atoms. If the spacing between these two atoms
issmaller than the wavelength, the two dipoles are in phase after the ﬁrst photon emission,
resulting in a factor of two larger spontaneous emission rate for the second photon emission
compared to the single-atom rate. If the spacing between the two atoms is larger than
the wavelength, the phase relationship between the dipoles does not have to be symmetricany more, but it introduces a strong correlation between the direction of the ﬁrst and thesecond photon emission. Consider angular distribution of spontaneously emitted photons
from two excited state atoms separated by 2.5λ. If the ﬁrst emitted photon was found in
one of the “nodes” of the radiation pattern from dipoles oscillating in phase, the probability
distribution of the direction of the second photon emission is given by the solid line in Fig.
4-3, since the wave function after the ﬁrst photon emission is in an anti-symmetric state.
These correlations between the successive photon emission is further pronounced insuperradiance from extended samples (Fig. 4-4). For an anisotropic sample, the strength ofthe correlation is largest when photons are emitted along its longest axis (“end-ﬁre mode”).
As a result, highly directional light beams come out from incoherently excited, elongatedsamples of atoms. The light beam has the same property as a laser beam and was called“coherence-brightened laser”, but its coherence is maintained by the phase relationshipbetween the dipoles, not by recycling photons in a cavity.
The full analogy between the Dicke superradiance discussed above and the superradiant
Rayleigh scattering observed here can be summarized as follows. The condensate at rest
“dressed” by the oﬀ-resonant laser beam corresponds to the electronically excited state in
the Dicke state. It is important to notice that we are not referring to the fraction of atoms
in electronically excited state in the dressed condensate. The dressed condensate can decay
by spontaneous emission to a state with photon recoil, corresponding to the ground state.
The rate of superradiant emission in Dicke’s treatment is proportional to the square ofan oscillating macroscopic dipole moment. In the present case, the radiated intensity is

47

(a)

(b)

d>λ

d<λ
2Γf

2Γ

2Γ(1−f )2Γ
Antenna pattern for d = 2.5 λ“triplet” “singlet”

Figure 4-3: Dicke Superradiance from two atoms in excited states, separated by distances
smaller or larger than the wavelength of radiation. If the two atoms are spaced closer
than the wavelength (a), the two dipoles oscillates in phase after the ﬁrst photon emission
and thus couples strongly to the radiation ﬁeld. If two atoms are separated by more than
the wavelength (b), the dipoles can acquire either in phase (probability f ) or out of phase(probability 1−f ) oscillation as a result of the ﬁrst photon emission, and this phase diﬀerenceaﬀects the direction of the second photon emission. In case of two atoms separated by
d = 2.5λ, if the ﬁrst photon is emitted into one of the nodes of the dotted line (the radiation
pattern from two dipoles in phase), it indicates out of phase oscillation of the dipoles, andthe probability distribution of the second photon emission is given by the solid line (theradiation pattern from two dipoles oscillating out of phase).

proportional to the matter wave interference pattern between the condensate and recoilingatoms.

4.3

In-situ monitoring of matter wave gratings

The directional scattering of light was veriﬁed by directing the light onto a CCD camera thatwas positioned out of focus of the imaging system, and observing the angular distributionof photons emitted around the axial direction (Fig. 4-5a). The images consisted of brightspots with angular widths equal to the diﬀraction limit for a source with a diameter of∼ 14 µm. Typical images showed more than one such spot, and their pattern changed
randomly under the same experimental condition. This large run to run variation arises
from the ampliﬁcation of initial quantum ﬂuctuations as veriﬁed by detailed numericalsimulations in Ref. [127].
By replacing the camera with a photomultiplier, a time-resolved measurement of thescattered light intensity was obtained (Fig. 4-5b). Simple Rayligh scattering would give a
constant signal during the square-shaped incident pulse. Instead, we observed a fast rise
and a subsequent decay consistent with a stimulated process.
Measurement at variable laser intensities showed a threshold for the onset of superradiance and a shorter rise time for higher laser intensities. This behavior can be accounted
for by introducing a loss term Γ2 :48

Figure 4-4: Dicke superradiance from an extended sample. For a spherical cloud of atoms,
there is no special mode of radiation and superradiance happens in an omni-directionalmanner. For a pencil-shaped cloud, strong coupling between the dipoles in the cloud and the“end-ﬁre” mode results in enhanced (superradiant) emission of light in the axial direction.
Figure taken from Ref. [125]

49

A
θD
Light intensity (arb. unit)

B

0.0

0.0

0.4
Time (ms)

0.6

C

-1

Inverse rise time (ms )

100

0.2

0.2

50

0
0.0

0.1
0.2
Rayleigh scattering rate (ms-1)

Figure 4-5: Observation of directional emission of light. (A) The angular pattern of theemitted light along the axial direction showed a few bright spots with an angular width θD(1/e2 diameter) of 107± 20 mrad, corresponding to the diﬀraction limited angle of an objectof ∼ 14 µm in diameter. The images were integrated over the entire duration of the lightpulse. (B) The temporal evolution of the light intensity showed a strong initial increasecharacteristic of a stimulated process. For higher laser power, the pulse was shorter andmore intense. The laser intensities were 3.8 (solid line), 2.4 (dashed line), and 1.4 mW/cm2(dotted line), and the duration was 550 µs. The inset shows a double-peak in the temporalsignal when the laser intensity was about 15 mW/cm 2 , which was above the threshold forsequential superradiant scattering. The photomultiplier recorded the light over an angle of
200 mrad around the axial direction. (C) The dependence of the inverse initial rise time on
the Rayleigh scattering rate shows a threshold for the stimulated process. The solid curve
is a straight-line ﬁt. Figure taken from Ref. [18].

506Number of atoms (10 )

1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0
0

50
100
Pulse duration (µs)

150

Figure 4-6: “Matter wave ampliﬁcation out of noise.” Shown is the number of atoms in
one of the superradiant peaks vs. duration of the laser pulse. An intense atomic pulse
was formed by ampliﬁcation of spontaneous scattering. The initial number of atoms in thecondensate at rest was 2 × 107 , and the laser intensities were about 25 (ﬁlled circles) and
45 mW/cm2 (open circles). The solid lines are guides to the eye. Figure taken from Ref.
[18].

Ṅj = (Gj − Γ2 )Nj(4.2)

where Gj = RN0 sin2 θj Ωj /(8π/3) is the gain coeﬃcient. We determined the exponential
rate (Gj − Γ2 ) by ﬁtting the initial rise in the light intensity. The inverse rise time Ṅj /Njversus the Rayleigh scattering rate R is shown in Fig. 4-5c. The slope gives Gj /R, and theoﬀset determines the loss Γ2 . The agreement between the calculated value for Gj /R ∼ 890
and the result of the simple linear ﬁt (790) is better than the uncertainty in the Rayleighscattering rate(40%).
The oﬀset in Fig. 4-5c determines the threshold for superradiance and yields 1/Γ2 =35 µs. This decoherence rate of the matter wave grating was measured in Chapter 3 as a
Bragg resonance width. The observed FWHM of about 5 kHz yields a decoherence rate of
32 µs, in good agreement with the value shown above ∗ .
The rise of the number of atoms in the superradiant peak (Fig. 4-6) can be regarded as
matter wave ampliﬁcation seeded by quantum ﬂuctuations. The input-output characteristic
and phase-coherence of this process was studied in the next section.
Dicke superradiance is based on the coherence of the emitting system, but it does not
require quantum degeneracy. The necessity of the bosonic nature of the atoms, or the
possibility of using fermionic atoms to observe superradiant Rayleigh scattering and othermatter wave ampliﬁcation phenomena is discussed in detail in Chapter 7. Here, I only∗

There, the recoil atoms propagated perpendicular to the long axis of the condensate. The “finite-size”
contribution to the line broadening was therefore twice that of the present geometry

51

point out that although quantum degeneracy is not needed for observing these phenomena,
it aﬀects the threshold for ampliﬁcation in a major manner. The condition for superradianceis that the gain exceed the losses or that the superradiant decay time is shorter than any
decoherence time. Above the BEC transition temperature, thermal Doppler broadening
results in a 30 times shorter decoherence time than for a condensate. Furthermore, thelarger size of the thermal cloud reduces the solid angle Ωj and therefore the gain by factor of
10. Thus, the threshold for superradiance in a thermal cloud is several orders of magnitude
higher than for a condensate. No signs of superradiant scattering were observed above
Tc ; rather, the sudden appearance of superradiant emission was a sensitive indicator forreaching the phase transition.
It is often emphasized that “spontaneous” phenomena are truly quantum mechanicaland diﬀerent from “coherent” phenomena, which can be explained by classical physics. The
study of superradiance shows that this boundary is somewhat arbitrary. On the one hand,superradiance is collectively enhanced spontaneous emission. The build up of the matterwave grating corresponds to the enhancement of correlation (or increased ﬂuctuations),
which causes the enhancement of the spontaneous scattering. (There is no grating likestructure in the expectation value of the density proﬁle.) However, as it was shown at the
beginning of this chapter, a classical interpretation of this enhancement is possible if we
introduce the notion of quantum ﬂuctuation, which triggers the buildup of a macroscopic
matter wave grating. Once the grating is there, the grating evolves “coherently” without
help from the “spontaneous” nature of scattering. This interesting aspect of correlation
functions in quantum mechanics will show up again in Chapter 7, where we discuss the roleof quantum statistics.

52

Chapter 5

Matter wave ampliﬁcation using a
dressed Bose-Einstein condensate
This chapter focuses on the experiment reported in the following publication:• S. Inouye, T. Pfau, S. Gupta, A.P. Chikkatur, A. Görlitz, D.E. Pritchard, and W.
Ketterle, “Phase-coherent ampliﬁcation of atomic matter waves,” Nature, 402, 641(1999). Included in Appendix E.

5.1“Seeding” the superradiance

Although coherent atomic beams have been produced, matter wave ampliﬁcation has notbeen directly observed prior to our work. Several schemes had been proposed in the pastfrom the viewpoint of realizing matter wave analog of optical lasers [128, 129, 130, 131].
However, due to severe requirements for experimental conditions, none of them had beenrealized.
Matter wave ampliﬁcation diﬀers from light ampliﬁcation in one important aspect. Since
the total number of atoms is conserved (in contrast to photons), the active medium of amatter wave ampliﬁer has to include a reservoir of atoms. One also needs a couplingmechanism which transfers atoms from the reservoir to the input mode while conserving
energy and momentum. Ampliﬁcation is realized if the transfer mechanism is accelerated
by the build-up of atoms in the ﬁnal state and irreversibility of the process is ensured bysome form of dissipation.
In the last chapter, we studied how spontaneous Rayleigh scattering from a condensate
leads to the buildup of directional matter waves. As it was pointed out towards the endof the last chapter, this buildup can be regarded as matter wave ampliﬁcation (!) seededby the initial spontaneous scattering. The active medium is a Bose-Einstein condensate
dressed by an oﬀ-resonant laser beam. The momentum required to transfer atoms from thecondensate at rest to the input mode was provided by light scattering. It ampliﬁes input
53

(a)

(b)

Input

(c)

OutputNout / N0

0.05

BEC

BEC
0.00
0.000

0.001
Nin / N0

0.002

Figure 5-1: Input-output characteristics of the matter wave ampliﬁer. (a,b) Typical timeof-ﬂight absorption images demonstrating matter wave ampliﬁcation. The number of atoms
after ampliﬁcation pulse (upper right spot in (b)) is clearly larger than what was seeded tothe ampliﬁer (a), showing gain for matter waves. No recoiling atoms are discernible in thecase of ampliﬁcation without the input. The size of the images is 2.2 mm × 2.2 mm. (c)Output of the ampliﬁer as a function of the number of atoms at the input. A straight-line
ﬁt shows a number gain of 30.

matter waves within the momentum range which can be reached by scattering a photon fromthe dressing beam. The process is irreversible since the scattered photon quickly leaves the
dressed condensate. This ampliﬁcation process can be observed more directly by providing
a variable input and measuring the amplitude and phase of the output matter wave.
Input matter waves with a well deﬁned momentum were generated by exposing thecondensate to a pulsed optical standing wave which transferred a small fraction of theatoms into a recoil mode by Bragg diﬀraction [17, 116]. The geometry of the light beams
is shown in Fig. 5-2, and the intensity of the beams were kept below the threshold forsuperradiance. Ampliﬁcation of the input matter wave was realized by applying an intense
pump pulse along the direction of the radial Bragg beam for the next 20 µs with a typicalintensity of 40 mW/cm 2 . The number of atoms in the recoil mode was determined bysuddenly switching oﬀ the trap and observing the ballistically expanding using resonant
absorption imaging.
Fig. 5-1 shows the input-output characteristics of the ampliﬁer. The number of output
atoms is an order of magnitude larger than the number of input atoms, clearly demonstrating
the ampliﬁcation of matter waves. The gain can be controlled by the intensity of the pumppulse (see Eq. 4.1) and typically varied between 10 and 100. Fig. 5-1c shows the observed
linear relationship between the atom numbers in the input and the ampliﬁed output witha number gain of 30.

54

p.

Am

time

φ
φ

Free
expansion
10µs

20µs

10µs

35ms

Figure 5-2: Experimental scheme for observing phase coherent matter wave ampliﬁcation.
A small-amplitude matter wave was split oﬀ the condensate by applying a pulse of two
oﬀ-resonant laser beams (Bragg pulse). This input matter wave was ampliﬁed by passing it
through the condensate pumped by a laser beam. The coherence of the ampliﬁed wave wasveriﬁed by observing its interference with a reference matter wave, which was produced byapplying a second (reference) Bragg pulse to the condensate. The interference signal wasobserved after 35 ms of ballistic expansion. Note that the polarization of the radial beam
was perpendicular to the long axis of the condensate (θ = π/2). Extinction of the axial
beam during the amplifying pulse was better than 10−8 . Figure taken from Ref. [19] .

5.2

Phase of the ampliﬁed matter wave

The phase of the ampliﬁed matter wave was determined by an interferometric technique(Fig. 5-2). For this, a reference matter wave was split oﬀ the condensate in the trap in thesame manner as the ﬁrst (input) wave. The phase of the reference matter wave was scannedby shifting the phase of the rf signal that drove the acousto-optic modulator generating
the axial Bragg beam. We then observed the interference between the reference and theampliﬁed matter waves by measuring the number of atoms in the recoil mode.
Fig. 5-3 shows the interference signal between the ampliﬁed input and the reference
matter wave as the reference phase was scanned. When the input was comparable inintensity to the reference matter wave, high contrast fringes were observed even without
ampliﬁcation (Fig. 5-3a). Fringes were barely visible, when the input was about 40 times
weaker in population (Fig. 5-3b). After ampliﬁcation, we regained a large visibility(Fig. 53c). This increase in visibility proves the coherent nature of the matter wave ampliﬁcation
process.
The visibility was studied as a function of the number of atoms in the recoil mode. If
we characterize the two interfering matter waves by their atom numbers Ni and normalized
wavefunctions ψi , then the visibility V of the interference pattern is given by55N / N0

0.4

a

c

b

0.2

0.0
0

1

0
1
Phase / π01Figure 5-3: Phase coherent ampliﬁcation of matter waves. Shown is the number of atoms N
in the recoil mode versus the relative phase between the two Bragg pulses. (a) Interference
between two matter waves of almost equal intensity yielded a high contrast fringe (visibility
V = 52%). (b) When the intensity of the ﬁrst matter wave was decreased by a factor of
40, the visibility V dropped to the noise level(< 15%). (c) By switching on the ampliﬁer,
a large visibility was regained (V = 31%). Figure taken from Ref. [19].

V√
2 < ψ1 |ψ2 > N1 N2=
N1 + N2∼ 2 < ψ1 |ψ2 > N1 /N2

(5.1)
(N1

N2 )

(5.2)

Without ampliﬁcation, the observed visibility was in good agreement with Eq. 5.2, assuming < ψ1 |ψ2 >∼ 1 for the overlap factor. With ampliﬁcation, the visibility increased bya factor of about two over a wide range of input matter wave intensities under the same con√ditions which gave a number gain of 30 (Fig. 5-1). Since the visibility increases as N1 (Eq.
5.2), this implies a “coherent matter wave gain” of at least four. The discrepancy with thenumber gain of 30 may be due to a distortion of the input matter wave during ampliﬁcation
which would reduce the overlap factor ψ1 |ψ2 . Indeed, the shape of the ampliﬁed matterwave looked distorted after the 35 ms of time-of-ﬂight. This indicates a wavefront distortionof the ampliﬁed matter wave which can be parameterized by introducing an overlap factorof 4/30 = 0.4 in Eq. 5.2.
This experiment can also be regarded as a demonstration of an active atom interferometer. It realizes a two-pulse atom interferometer [132] with phase-coherent ampliﬁcation in
one of the arms. Such active interferometers may be advantageous for precise measurementsof phase shifts in highly absorptive media, e.g. , for measurements of the index of (matterwave) refraction when a condensate passes through a gas of atoms or molecules [133]. Since
the most accurate optical gyroscopes involve active interferometers [134], atom ampliﬁcation
might also play a role in future matter-wave gyroscopes [135].

56

Chapter 6

Optical properties of a dressed
Bose-Einstein condensate
The following section is a chapter of the following review paper.
• Wolfgang Ketterle and Shin Inouye, “Collective enhancement and suppression in
Bose-Einstein condensates.” Special issue of Compte rendus de l’académie des sciences, Série IV - Physique Astrophysique, in print; e-print cond- mat/010142429
This chapter was my responsibility. It describes the optical properties of a dressed BoseEinstein condensate that was ﬁrst reported in the following publication:• S. Inouye, R. F. Löw, S. Gupta, T. Pfau, A. Görlitz, T.L. Gustavson, D.E. Pritchard,
and W. Ketterle, “Ampliﬁcation of Light and Atoms in a Bose-Einstein Condensate,”
Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 4225 (2000). Included in Appendix F.

6.1

Four-wave mixing of light and atoms

When a condensate scatters a photon, the scattering is described by the Hamiltonianb̂†l â†n b̂k âm δl+n−k−m .

H = C(6.1)

k,l,m,nHere b̂k (b̂†k ) is the destruction (creation) operator for photons, and âk (â†k ) is the destruction(creation) operator for atomic plane waves of wavevector k. The strength of the coupling isparametrized by the coeﬃcient C (which in general may depend on the momentum transfer),and the δ function guarantees momentum conservation (with an uncertainty of /D, where
D is the dimension of the condensate). The coupling can be regarded as four-wave mixingof two atomic ﬁelds and two electromagnetic ﬁelds.
When an atom is illuminated by two strong laser beams in a Λ conﬁguration similar
to Fig. 6-1b, the electronically excited state can be adiabatically eliminated for suﬃciently57large detuning ∆. The coupling matrix element between the two atomic ground states isΩR /2, where ΩR is the two-photon Rabi frequency. This Rabi frequency can be expressedby the (complex) electric ﬁeld strength E1,2 of the two laser beams: ΩR = Ω1 Ω2 cos φ/2∆,
where Ω1,2 = E1,2 d/ are the Rabi frequencies of the individual laser beams with the atomic
dipole matrix element d. φ is the angle between the axes of polarization of the two laser
beams. The two-photon Rabi frequency ΩR can be rewritten asΩR = d2 E1 E2 cos φ/22 ∆.

(6.2)

Using the Hamiltonian in Eq. 6.1, the coupling matrix element squared is |C|2 n1 n2 where
n1,2 are the photon numbers in the two beams. The two-photon Rabi frequency ΩR is givenby(ΩR /2)2 = |C|2 n1 n2 .

(6.3)

Expressing the number n1 of photons with angular frequency ω0 in a volume V by thecomplex electric ﬁeld strength E1
n1 = 0 |E1 |2 V /2ω0 ,(6.4)

and comparing to Eq. 6.2 we obtain for the coupling constant C between the two modesC=ω0 d2 cos φ.
20 V ∆

(6.5)

Another simple limit of the Hamiltonian in Eq. 6.1 is the situation when atoms are
illuminated by a single laser beam in mode 1. Then the diagonal term C b̂†1 â†0 b̂1 â0 gives riseto the AC Stark shift. With the photon number n1 , the AC Stark shift ∆E of an atomis ∆E = Cn1 . Using Eqs. 6.4 and 6.5 with cos φ = 1 one obtains the well known result,∆E = d2 E12 /4∆.
The four-wave mixing Hamiltonian (Eq. 6.1) applies to interactions of a condensate
both with light and atoms. By introducing proper “C” for atom-atom interaction, we candraw analogies. The AC Stark shift corresponds to the mean ﬁeld interaction between
impurity atoms and the condensate. The scattering of atoms into empty modes by thefour-wave mixing between the atoms gave rise to the usual elastic collision rate. Similarly,
the scattering of photons into empty modes by the four-wave mixing between light andatoms results in Rayleigh scattering which we want to discuss now in more detail.
Rayleigh scattering rate R can be obtained from Fermi’s Golden Rule:R=

2π 2|C| n1 δ(Ek − Ek−q − ωq0 ).


(6.6)

The scattering rate per solid angle dγscatt /dΩ is given by integrating this equation over all

58

ﬁnal states using the density of states per energy interval and solid angle
V ω02
dρE
=
.
dEdΩ
(2πc)3 

(6.7)

2π 2
ω03 E12 d4 cos2 φdρEdγscatt
|C|
=
n
=
.
1
dΩ

dEdΩ
32π 2 3 c3 0 ∆2

(6.8)

Using Eqs. 6.4, 6.5 one obtains

With the expression for the natural linewidth ΓΓ=

d2 ω03,3π0 c3(6.9)

this simpliﬁes todγscatt
3 cos2 φ Ω21
3 sin2 θ
R,
=
Γ=

2
dΩ
8π 4∆
8π

(6.10)

where we have deﬁned the Rayleigh rate R
R=

Ω21
Γ.
4∆2

(6.11)

θ denotes the angle between the linear polarization of the incident light and the direction of
the scattered light. For each scattering angle θ there are two polarizations of the scattered
light. One is orthogonal to the incident polarization, thus cos φ = 0 in Eq. 6.5, and it
doesn’t contribute. The density of states in Eq. 6.7 was therefore deﬁned for only one
polarization. The other polarization is in the plane of the incident polarization and thescattering direction, thus cos φ = sin θ. R was deﬁned in Eq. 6.11 in such a way that
integration of Eq. 6.10 over the whole solid angle gives γscatt = R.
Below, we will need another useful expression for the two-photon Rabi frequency ΩR .
We use Eq. 6.3, assume that one laser beam is a weak probe beam with photon number np ,express the photon number of the other (strong) beam by its Raleigh scattering rate andobtainΩ2R = 6πRλ2 cnp /V.

(6.12)

Generally, the optical (or atomic) gratings are moving. As a result, the diﬀracted atoms(or photons) have an energy diﬀerent from that of the incident particles. However, one
can always transform to a moving frame where the grating is stationary and there is noenergy transfer in the scattering process. The frequency shift due to the moving grating cantherefore be regarded as the Doppler shift related to the Gallilean transformation between
the two frames.

59

6.2

Ampliﬁcation of light in a dressed condensate

A dressed condensate (Fig. 6-1), a condensate illuminated by laser light, was used as an
atom ampliﬁer. Now we develop this picture further. Rayleigh scattering produces scattered photons and recoiling atoms. In the dressed atom picture, this is described as the
decay of the dressed condensate into a photon and recoiling atom, or in other words, thedressed condensate can spontaneously emit pairs of photons and atoms. The ampliﬁcationof atoms discussed in the previous sections solely focuses on the recoiling atoms “emitted”
by the dressed condensate. Although recoiling atoms and scattered photons are emitted inpairs, the photons leave the condensate almost instantaneously and there is no signiﬁcant
population build-up. Formally, one can adiabatically eliminate the light ﬁeld from coupledequations and obtain the gain equation for the matter waves.
On the other hand, the dressed condensate should act also as an ampliﬁer for light. An
input optical ﬁeld should stimulate Rayleigh scattering processes which results in photons
scattered into the input mode. Our recent experiments on optical ampliﬁcation in a BEC[20] required a more general description of the interplay between optical and matter wave
ampliﬁcation.
On the following pages, we present a general discussion of four-wave mixing of light andatoms. We ﬁrst start simply with the gain cross-section for the light and a complex index ofrefraction. The recoiling atoms enter the picture in two stages, ﬁrst within the framework of
Heisenberg equations in the undepleted-pump approximation, and then using optical Blochequations.

6.3

Cross-section for optical gain and slow light

The physical picture behind the optical gain of the dressed condensate is as follows: if a very
weak probe beam is injected into the dressed condensate, it acts together with the dressing
beam as a pair of Bragg beams and creates recoiling atoms. This process transfers photons
from the dressing beam into the probe beam. At higher gain, the recoiling atoms become
signiﬁcant. They move out of the condensate (or decohere) on a time scale Γ−12 which is theinverse of the linewidth of the Bragg transition. In steady state, the number of recoilingatoms Nq in the volume of the condensate is proportional to the intensity of the probe light.
Those recoiling atoms interfere with the condensate at rest and form a diﬀraction grating
which diﬀracts the dressing beam into the path of the probe light resulting in ampliﬁcationof the probe light (Fig. 6-1).
An expression for the gain can be derived in analogy to a fully inverted two-level systemwith dipole coupling which would have a gain cross-section of 6πλ2 for radiation withwavelength λ(= 2πλ). For the Raman-type system in Fig. 6-1b, the gain is reduced by the
excited state fraction, R/Γ (where R is the Rayleigh scattering rate for the dressing beamand Γ is the linewidth of the single-photon atomic resonance) and increased by Γ/Γ2 , the
60

(a)

Recoiling
atoms
Matter wave
grating
BEC

(b)

∆

"Dressing"
beam
|1>

Probe
beam

Probe
beam

(c)

|2>
|1'>

Probe
beam

"Dressing"
beam

PMT

|2>

Figure 6-1: Ampliﬁcation of light and atoms by oﬀ-resonant light scattering. (a) The
fundamental process is the absorption of a photon from the “dressing” beam by an atomin the condensate (state |1), which is transferred to a recoil state (state |2) by emitting
a photon into the probe ﬁeld. The intensity in the probe light ﬁeld was monitored by aphotomultiplier. (b) The two-photon Raman-type transition between two motional states(|1, |2) gives rise to a narrow resonance. (c) The dressed condensate is the upper state(|1 ) of a two-level system, and decays to the lower state (recoil state of atoms, |2) byemitting a photon. Figure is taken from Ref. [20]ratio of the linewidths of the single-photon and two-photon Bragg resonances. Thus the
expected cross-section for gain is
σgain = 6πλ2

R.
Γ2

(6.13)The lineshape of the optical gain is that of the two-photon Bragg resonance. Due to thelong coherence time of a condensate, it has a very narrow linewidth. Such a narrow band
gain is accompanied by a slow group velocity of light. This can be described by a complex
index of refraction n(ω) = n1 (ω) + in2 (ω).
For a Lorentzian resonance curve with FWHM of Γ2 for the gain, the complex index ofrefraction isn(ω) = n∞ +

g
g δ
g i
= n∞ +−
δ+i
1 + δ2
1 + δ2(6.14)

where n∞ is the background index of refraction, g denotes the strength of the resonance, andδ = (ω − ω0 )/(Γ2 /2) is the normalized detuning from the resonance at ω0 . The imaginary
part of Eq. 6.14 has the usual Lorentzian lineshape.
The real and imaginary parts of the index of refraction are connected by Kramers-Kronig
relations. For the special case above of a Lorentzian lineshape the gain and dispersion atresonance are connected by2
dn1= − n2.
dω ω=ω0Γ2
ω=ω0(6.15)

A steep slope of the (real part of) the index of refraction gives rise to a slow group velocity
of lightvg =c.
ω(dn1 /dω) + n1
61

(6.16)

Eqs. 6.15 and 6.16 imply a simple relationship between the gain and delay time for an
optical pulse. The amplitude of an optical pulse at frequency ω0 which propagates througha medium with the index of refraction n of length l is ampliﬁed by a factor
g = exp(−n2 ω0 l/c).

(6.17)

When the ﬁrst term in the denominator of Eq. 6.16 is dominant, the delay time τD of thepulse isτD =2 ln gl
ω0 dn1
=
≈l
.
vg
c dω
Γ2

(6.18)

This equation provides a simple relationship between a narrow band gain and pulse delay [136]. A non-inverted absorptive two-level system gives rise to “superluminal” pulse
propagation [137].
For the experimental study of the optical gain, a condensate was illuminated (“dressed”)
with a single oﬀ-resonant laser beam and probed with another laser beam, which was reddetuned by 91 kHz to satisfy the Bragg resonance condition. Both the dressing beam andthe probe beam were in the plane perpendicular to the long axis of the condensate, andintersected at an angle of 135 degrees. The probe beam, which propagated parallel to theaxis of imaging, was much larger than the condensate size. In order to block all the light that
did not pass through the condensate, a slit was placed at an intermediate imaging plane.
The light transmitted by the slit was recorded with a photomultiplier. The polarization ofeach beam was set parallel to the long axis of the condensate to suppress superradiance toother recoil modes [18].
Fig. 6-2 shows that light pulses were delayed by about 20 µs across the 20 µm wide
condensate corresponding to a group velocity of 1 m/s. This was one order of magnitude
slower than any value reported at the time of our ﬁrst publication (See Ref. [138] andreferences therein. See Refs. [139, 140] for progresses after our report). Fig. 6-2b presents
the experimental veriﬁcation of the relationship between gain and delay time (Eq. 6.18).

6.4

Relation between optical gain and atomic gain

Both the optical gain g (Eqs. 6.13 and 6.17) and the matter wave gain G (Eq. 4.2) have thesame origin, stimulated Rayleigh scattering. Therefore, the two gain coeﬃcients should be
related. The expression for G (Eq. 4.2) involves a solid angle factor Ωq which is proportionalto λ2 /A. To be consistent with the optical Bloch equation (to be discussed below) we use
now 2λ2 /A for Ωq and obtainG=

RN0 3 2λ = (ρ0 lσgain /2)Γ2 .
A 4π

62

(6.19)

(b)Delay [µs]

(a)
20

0
-0.2

0.0
0.2
Time [ms]

1

0.4

2

3

Gain

Figure 6-2: Pulse delay due to light ampliﬁcation. (a) About 20 µs delay was observed
when a Gaussian pulse of about 140 µs width and 0.11 mW/cm2 peak intensity was sent
through the dressed condensate (bottom trace). The top trace is a reference taken without
the dressed condensate. Solid curves are Gaussian ﬁts to guide the eyes. (b) The observed
delay was proportional to the logarithm of the observed gain. Figure is taken from Ref.
[20].

The gain g for the amplitude of the optical ﬁeld is
g = exp(ρ0 lσgain /2) = exp(G/Γ2 ) ≈ 1 +G
Γ2(6.20)

with the last equation being an approximation for small gain. However, Eq. 6.20 cannot beuniversally valid. When the gain G is above the threshold for superradiance, G > Γ2 (Eq.
4.2) the optical gain should diverge: a single recoiling atom created by the probe light anddressing light is exponentially ampliﬁed and creates a huge matter wave grating which will
diﬀract the dressing light into the probe light path, thus amplifying the probe light by adivergent factor. Indeed, as we will derive below, Eq. 6.20 is only valid at small values ofG/Γ2 .
If we can neglect the depletion of the dressed condensate and the dressing laser beam
we can simplify the interaction Hamiltonian in Eq. 6.1 toH = C  (â† b̂† + âb̂).

(6.21)

Here, â(b̂) indicates the atomic (light) ﬁeld to be ampliﬁed, but the following derivationis completely symmetric between the two ﬁelds. This Hamiltonian is a standard downconversion Hamiltonian. Here it describes the down-conversion of the dressed condensate
into photons and recoiling atoms. Considering only two modes neglects propagation eﬀects
in the ampliﬁcation. The coeﬃcient C  deﬁnes the time constant of the ampliﬁcation andis proportional to the amplitude of the dressing beam and the square root of the number ofatoms in the condensate. The Heisenberg equations of motions areiâ˙ = [â, H ] = C  b̂† ,˙ib̂† = [b̂† , H ] = −C  â.

63(6.22)(6.23)

This leads to exponential growth of â and b̂ (proportional to exp(C  t)). However, to describe
the physical situation in the experiments, one has to allow for damping by introducing
Γa (Γb ) as phenomenological damping time constants for â(b̂). We also include source terms(input ﬁelds) and approximate the operators by c numbers:
Γa(a − a0 ) − iC  b∗ ,2
Γb= iC  a − (b∗ − b∗0 ).
2ȧ = −b˙∗(6.24)The solutions show relaxation (C 2 ≤ Γa Γb /4) or exponential growth (C 2 ≥ Γa Γb /4) depending on the strength of the coupling relative to the damping rates. The “gain” below thethreshold can be deﬁned as a(t → ∞)/a0 for atoms (assuming b0 = 0) and as b(t → ∞)/b0
for light (assuming a0 = 0), yieldingg=b(t → ∞)
Γa Γb /4a(t → ∞)
=
=
.
a0
b0
(Γa Γb /4) − C 2

(6.25)

The fact that the two gain coeﬃcients are equal is a general property of parametric ampliﬁcation where two kinds of particles are produced in pairs.
In the limiting case that one ﬁeld is strongly damped (e.g. that light quickly escapesfrom the system, ΓbΓa ), one can adiabatically eliminate this ﬁeld from the coupledequation (assuming no photon input (b∗0 = 0))
b∗ =

2iC 
a
Γb

(6.26)and obtain a single gain equation for a. The gain equation for the atom ﬁeld isȧ = −2C 2
Γa(a − a0 ) +a.
2
Γb(6.27)In the absence of damping, the atom number would increase exponentially with a rate
constant 4C 2 /Γb which we therefore identify with the atom gain rate coeﬃcient G in
Eq. 6.19. This can be shown explicitly using C 2 = |C|2 N0 nk /2 and setting the mode
volume V = AL, where A is the cross section of the condensate. The axial length L could
be the condensate length l, but will cancel out. Eqs. 6.3 and 6.12 yield 4C 2 /Γb = 2Gc/LΓbwhich equals G when we set the decay rate Γb /2 equal to the photon transit time c/L. We
can then rewrite the gain calculated above as
g=

Γa
Γa
.
=
2
Γa − 4C /ΓbΓa − G(6.28)For the dressed condensate, we identify Γa with Γ2 . As expected, at the threshold tosuperradiance (G = Γ2 ), the (steady-state) gain for both light and matter waves diverges.

64The gain can be rewritten asg = Γ2 /(Γ2 − G) = 1 + G/(Γ2 − G).

(6.29)In the low gain limit, this yields the same result as Eq. 6.20. The comparison with Eq. 6.20
shows that the eﬀect of the coupled equations is to replace the two-photon linewidth Γ2
in Eq. 6.20 by the dynamic coherence decay rate Γ2 − G. Since propagation eﬀects havebeen excluded, we can’t expect to obtain the exponential factor in Eq. 6.20, but rather the
linearized form. The expansion
g = 1 + (G/Γ2 ) + (G/Γ2 )2 + . . .

(6.30)

describes the transition from (linear) single-atom gain to (nonlinear) collective gain.

6.5

Optical Bloch equations

The discussion in the previous two sections assumed that the condensate is undepleted—i.e., we calculated properties of a condensate with all the atoms in the initial dressed state.
However, the presence of the dressing light and the probe light depletes the condensate.
Furthermore, the calculated ampliﬁcation coeﬃcients are only valid in a quasi-steady state
regime which is usually preceded by transient behavior. A correct interpretation of theexperimental results required a more complete description of the dynamics of the system
which will be developed in this section using optical Bloch equations.
We proceed in two steps. In the limit of weak optical gain (or strong probe laser
intensity), we will use the ordinary optical Bloch equations where the laser ﬁelds are treatedas constant. Later we will introduce an additional equation for the dynamics of the probe
light. The condensate at rest (|1) and the atoms in the recoil state (|2) are treated as a
two-level system coupled by the four-wave mixing Hamiltonian which gives rise to a twophoton Rabi frequency ΩR (Eq. 6.2). The coherence between those two states decays at
a rate Γ2 /2. Assuming constant ΩR , the optical Bloch equations at resonance take thefollowing simple formΓ2v − ΩR w
2ẇ = ΩR v
v̇ = −(6.31)(6.32)

where v = 2 Im(ρ12 ) represents the amplitude of the matter wave grating (ρij is the atomic
density matrix) and w = ρ22 − ρ11 is the population diﬀerence between the two states [141].
The eigenvalues of the matrix−Γ2 /2 −ΩR
ΩR

0
65


(6.33)

are λ± = −Γ2 /4 ±(Γ2 /4)2 − Ω2R . In the limits of large and small laser intensities one

obtainsλ± =− Γ42 ± iΩR2Ω2− Γ22 , − Γ2R

Γ2 /4

ΩR

Γ2 /4

ΩR

.

(6.34)

This means that at high intensities the system exhibits damped oscillations—Rabi oscillations between the two levels. At low intensities, there is relaxation in two steps: The
coherence is damped with a rate of Γ2 /2, followed by depletion of atoms in the condensate,
which happens at a rate of 2Ω2R /Γ2 . It is in this temporal window (2/Γ2 < t < Γ2 /2Ω2R )that the perturbative treatment with the complex index of refraction applies. For longer
times, the condensate becomes depleted and the assumption that most of the atoms are in
the initial dressed state is no longer valid.
The optical Bloch equations can be analytically solved for a step function input. With
the initial condition that at time t = 0 all the atoms are in the condensate at rest (w(t =0) = −1, v(t = 0) = 0) one obtains
 √ 2 ΩR
Ω2R − (Γ2 /4)2 tΩR ≥ Γ42ΩR −(Γ2 /4)
v(t) = √ ΩR2 2 exp(− Γ42 t) sinh(Γ2 /4)2 − Ω2R tΩR ≤ Γ42exp(− Γ42 t) sin
2(6.35)(Γ2 /4) −ΩRsimplifying in the limit of small probe laser intensity (ΩRv(t) ≈=

Γ2 /4) to



2Ω2
−Γ2
2ΩR
t) + exp(− R t)
− exp(
Γ2
2
Γ2


Γ2
2ΩR
t
Γ2 /Ω2R .
− exp(− t) + 1
Γ2
2(6.36)(6.37)

By reducing the probe power, the Rabi oscillations slow down and become overdamped anda (quasi-)steady state gain is obtained. Inserting Eq. 6.36 into Eq. 6.32 one obtains thetransition rate N0 ẇ/2 = N0 ΩR v/2 which is the number of photons per unit time emitted
by the dressed condensate. To obtain the gain one has to normalize by the input photon
ﬂux cnp /l where np is the number of photons in the condensate. The amplitude gain is then(assuming small gain)
g =1+

N0 ΩR lv.
4cnp

(6.38)

Using the asymptotic behavior of Eq. 6.37 (v(t) ≈ 2ΩR /Γ2 ), Eq. 6.12 for ΩR and Eq. 6.13
one obtains g = 1 + ρ0 σgain l/2 which agrees with Eqs. 6.20 and 6.29 in the low-intensity
limit. Eq. 6.38 thus has the correct asymptotic limit, but it also describes transient behavior
when the general solution for v(t) (Eq. 6.35) is used. Theoretical traces based on Eq. 6.38
are directly compared to the experimental results in Fig. 6-3.
In the experiment, we used long square probe pulses for the probe light (Fig. 6-3).
When the dressing beam was suddenly switched oﬀ, a sudden change in the observed probe

66

4

(a)

(b)

Gain

3
2
1
0
0.0

0.5

0.0

Dressing beam

0.5Time [ms]Probe beam

Figure 6-3: Gain and temporal behavior of light pulses propagating through a dressed condensate. (a) Observed probe pulse output from a dressed condensate. The probe lightintensities were 5.7 mW/cm 2 (bottom), 1.5 mW/cm2 (middle), 0.10 mW/cm 2 (top), while
the dressing beam intensity was 5 mW/cm2 , which was just below the threshold for superradiance. The plotted signals were normalized by the incident probe intensity and show
the gain for the probe light. (b) Calculated probe light output for typical experimental
parameters. Rabi oscillations develop into steady state gain as the intensity of the probe
light is reduced. Figure is taken from Ref. [20].

light intensity was evidence for optical gain. At the lowest probe intensity, the depletionof atoms in the condensate was negligible and a clear step at the switch oﬀ was observed,
corresponding to a gain of ≈ 2.8. The initial rise time of ≈ 100 µs is the coherence timeof the dressed condensate. At high probe laser power we observed Rabi oscillations in
the transmitted probe light. Note that all the traces were normalized by the probe beam
intensity, and the oscillatory trace at the bottom was obtained at the highest probe beam
intensity. The oscillations reﬂect simple two-level Rabi oscillations of atoms between thetwo motional states driven by the two-photon Bragg coupling.
When the probe laser frequency was detuned from the two-photon resonance, the frequency of the Rabi oscillations increased (Fig. 6-4). Optical Bloch equations with detuning[141] predict oscillations at


Ωeﬀ =

Ω2R + ∆ω 2

(6.39)

where ∆ω is the detuning, in agreement with observations.
For large optical gain, the Rabi frequency ΩR increases during the pulse and the above
treatment is no longer valid. Therefore, we derive now a second equation which treats the
Rabi frequency as a dynamic variable. The population transfer to the recoil state (ẇ) results
in an increase of the number of the probe beam photons inside the condensate volumen˙p = c(n0p − np )/l + N0 ẇ/2,(6.40)

where l is the length of the condensate with N0 atoms and cn0p /l is the input photon ﬂux.
Without gain, the steady-state number of photons in the condensate volume would be n0p .
Eq. 6.40 neglects propagation eﬀects of the light by replacing the non-uniform electric ﬁeld
67

Effective Rabi
frequency [kHz]a)∆ν = 12 kHz
6 kHz

1.5

0 kHz

1.0

-6 kHz0.5-12 kHz

0.0

0

5

b)

Amplitude [arb.unit]

2.0

10

0.5

c)
-10

0

10

Detuning ∆ν [kHz]Time [ms]Figure 6-4: Rabi oscillations of atoms observed by monitoring the transmitted probe lightintensity. a) Rabi oscillations for diﬀerent detunings of the probe light from the two-photon
resonance. b) Observed frequencies of Rabi oscillation versus detuning. The solid line isa ﬁt to Eq. 6.39. c) Amplitude of the oscillations versus detuning. The solid line is a
Lorentzian ﬁt with a linewidth of about 4 kHz.

by an average value (such a “mean-ﬁeld model” is only qualitative, see [142]).
Replacing the photon number by the Rabi frequency (Eq. 6.12) leads toc
N0 R6πλ2 cΩR v
2 ΩR Ω̇R = (Ω20 − Ω2R ) +l
2
V(6.41)

where Ω0 is the two-photon Rabi frequency due to the input probe beam and the dressing
beam. For small gain, we approximate Ω20 − Ω2R ≈ 2ΩR (Ω0 − ΩR ). This approximation
should retain the qualitative features of the coupled light-atom system even when the small
gain approximation is no longer quantitative. Indeed, we will obtain results consistent with
our previous treatment (Eq. 6.29) which was not limited to small gain. Using Eq. 6.19 forthe atom gain G we obtaincGΩ̇R = (Ω0 − ΩR + v)
l2

(6.42)

This equation together with Eqs. 6.31 and 6.32 forms a set of coupled equations describing the combined dynamics of the atom and light ﬁelds. The situation is analogous tothe optical laser, where the atomic polarization and the electric ﬁeld inside the cavity arecoupled. However, the role of atoms and light is reversed: in the optical laser, the cavity
lifetime is usually longer than the coherence time of the atomic polarization, whereas inour case the extremely long coherence time of the condensate dominates. This would correspond to the bad cavity limit of the optical laser which is usually not realized (see [143]and references therein).
Assuming rapid relaxation of the light ﬁeld (Ω˙R = 0 in Eq. 6.42) leads toΩR = Ω0 +

68

G
v.
2

(6.43)

Inserting this into Eqs. 6.31 and 6.32 adiabatically eliminates the light ﬁeld. This treatment
is more general than the Heisenberg equations above, where we had neglected condensate
depletion. To check for consistency, we now assume an undepleted condensate (w = −1)
and obtainv̇ =G − Γ2v + Ω0 .
2(6.44)

Below the threshold for superradiance, (G ≤ Γ2 ), v relaxes with a time constant of 2/(Γ2 −G)
to v = 2Ω0 /(Γ2 − G). This and Eq. 6.43 show that the gain g for the probe beam isg =1+GΓ2 − G(6.45)

in agreement with Eq. 6.29.

6.6

Optical probe of matter wave gain

The matter wave grating formed inside the condensate is responsible for both atomic andoptical gain. We now brieﬂy describe experiments where the dynamics of the matter wave
grating could be directly observed by monitoring the probe light. We ﬁrst created a matterwave grating with a Bragg pulse and then observed its time evolution by monitoring thediﬀracted dressing beam. The initial seed pulse was 100 µs long and transferred about 5%of the atoms to the recoil state.
At lower intensities for which atom ampliﬁcation was negligible, the grating showed a
simple decay (Fig. 6-5). At higher intensities, collective gain started to compensate the loss,
and at intensities above a threshold, net ampliﬁcation was observed. The initial growth rate
(Fig. 6-5) followed the linear dependence on the intensity of the dressing beam (∝ (G − Γ2 ))predicted by Eq. 6.44 and Refs. [18, 127]. The net growth of the matter wave grating wasstudied previously by observing an increase in the number of recoiling atoms in time-of-ﬂight
images [19], whereas Fig. 6-5 was obtained by monitoring the dynamics of ampliﬁcation insitu by observing light instead of atoms.
Extrapolating the decay rate in Fig. 6-5 to zero intensity of the dressing beam gives
the decay rate of the matter wave grating Γ2 of (100 µs)−1 , in fair agreement with thelinewidth of the Bragg excitation process observed previously [17]. This observation of the
decay of the matter-wave grating can be regarded as pump-probe spectroscopy of quasiparticles in the condensate. The seeding Bragg pulse created the quasi-particles (in thiscase condensate excitations in the free-particle regime). One can control the momentumof the excited quasi-particles by the angle between the laser beams. This could be used
to excite phonon-like quasiparticles [22], and their lifetimes could be determined with thepump-probe scheme presented here.

69

0.00

0.10
Time [ms]Net growth rate [1/ms]

Scattered light intensity

(a)

30

(b)

20
10
0
-10
0.0
1.0
Dressing light intensity [1/ms]

Figure 6-5: Pump-probe spectroscopy of a matter wave grating inside the condensate.
(a) First, approximately 5 % of atoms were transferred to the recoil state by the twophoton Bragg transition. Then the dynamics of the matter wave grating was observedin situ by illuminating the grating with oﬀ-resonant dressing light and monitoring thediﬀracted light intensity. All traces were normalized to the same diﬀracted light intensity
at t = 0. The dressing beam intensity was 2.9 mW/cm2 (bottom), 5.7 mW/cm2 (middle),
13 mW/cm2 (top). (b) The initial growth rate of the grating vs. light intensity shows thethreshold for net gain. The intensity of the dressing beam is given in units of the single-atomRayleigh scattering rate. Figure is taken from Ref. [20].

6.7Single-atom and collective behavior

The optical gain studied above clearly showed the transition from single-atom gain (theﬁrst term in the expansion in Eq. 6.30) to collective gain. Varying the intensities of probe
and dressing light allows for the study of diﬀerent physical regimes. At low dressing lightintensity, below the superradiant threshold, one encounters single-atom behavior, at highintensity the system shows collective superradiance. The probe laser intensity determines
whether the system shows oscillatory or steady state response, as derived above using optical
Bloch equations. Fig. 6-6 summarizes the diﬀerent regimes.
Probe light traces showing the transition from Rabi oscillations to superradiance are presented in Fig. 6-7. As a function of the dressing light intensity, the damped Rabi oscillations
become faster and almost suddenly turn into a giant superradiant pulse.
Previously, recoil related gain based on single-atom phenomena (Recoil Induced Resonances) was observed in cold cesium atoms [117]. Collective gain due to the formation of adensity grating was discussed as a possible gain mechanism for lasing action [144] (named
CARL—Coherent Atomic Recoil Laser) and pursued experimentally [145, 146] with ambiguous results (see [147] and the discussion in [148, 149]). Our experiments clearly identify
the two regimes and their relationship.
The dressed condensate is a clean, model system for discussing optical and atom-opticalproperties. The observed slow group velocity of the probe laser pulse can be directly related
to the dynamics of the ampliﬁcation process. The optical ampliﬁcation can be described
as a reﬂection of the dressing light by a matter wave grating. The initial delay time in the70Probe light intensity

G=Γ2
Single atom
behavorCollective
behavior

Fig.6-3
Rabi
oscillations

Fig. 6-7

Dressing light intensity
Steady state gain
and slow light

Superradiance

Figure 6-6: Schematic diagram of the diﬀerent regimes of a dressed condensate. Dependingon the intensities of the dressing and the probe beams, the dressed condensate occupies different physical regimes. Single atom and collective behavior are separated by the thresholdto superradiance (G = Γ2 , Eq. 4.2).

b)a)Output light intensity [arb. unit]

6

4

2

0

0

0.5
Time [ms]

0

1.0

0.5
Time [ms]1.0

Figure 6-7: From single-atom Rabi oscillations to collective superradiance. a) The dressing
beam intensity was increased from 2.7, 3.8, 6.1, 9.1, 14.1, 21.3, 32.7, 49.5 to 76 mW/cm2(bottom to top). The probe beam intensity was kept at 5 mW/cm2 . b) Numerical solutionof the nonlinear optical Bloch equations (Eqs. 6.42, 6.31 and 6.32). Plotted is Ω2R for thesame experimental parameters as in a).

71

(Absorption)0ωp(Gain)

Absorption coefficient(a)|k=2q>

Absorption coefficient

|k=0>
(b)

|3>

ωp
0

Probe light frequency ωp

|2>
|1>

Figure 6-8: Comparison between two diﬀerent methods to generate slow light. (a) Narrowband optical ampliﬁcation using a two-photon resonance. (b) Electromagnetically induced
transparency.

ampliﬁcation of optical pulses is the time necessary to build up the (quasi-)steady state
matter wave grating. When the input pulse is switched oﬀ, the matter wave grating still
exists and diﬀracts the pump light (as observed in Fig. 6-5) creating the trailing edge of thetransmitted light pulse. Thus, the slow speed of light is simply related to the slow build-up
and decay of quasi-particles which we were able to monitor directly. In this microscopic
picture, all photons propagate with the vacuum speed of light c, the slow group velocity
is only a phenomenological description of the center-of-mass propagation of the ampliﬁed
pulse. This description leads to the same number of photons inside the condensate. Slowlight pulses are compressed by a factor c/vg , but the electric ﬁeld strength is unchanged[150, 151]. Therefore, the product of the total number of photons within the pulse and thetransit time is constant.
Recent demonstrations of slow group velocities for light focused on electromagneticallyinduced transparency (EIT) in a three-level Λ system [138]. This system features a narrow
dip in a broad absorption feature. In our system, the broad absorption line is missing. Since
the propagation of resonant laser pulses is mainly determined by the narrow feature (which
determines dn1 /dω), both systems show analogous behavior (see Fig. 6-8). Indeed, if one
would add a broad-band absorber to the narrow-band ampliﬁer, one would create the sameindex of refraction as in the EIT scheme.
Although both schemes involve three levels in a Λ conﬁguration (Fig. 6-8), there aremajor diﬀerences. The ampliﬁcation scheme does not have a dark state because it has
oﬀ-resonant couplings to other momentum states which are indicated in Fig. 6-8. In theampliﬁcation scheme the strong pump pulse connects the initially populated state to theexcited state in a far oﬀ-resonant way. In the EIT scheme the strong coupling laser drives
the other leg of the Λ transition and is on resonance.

72

Chapter 7

Does matter wave ampliﬁcation
work for fermions?
This chapter discusses the role of quantum statistics on oﬀ-resonant light scattering experiments, which was reported in the following publication:• Wolfgang Ketterle and Shin Inouye, “Does matter wave ampliﬁcation work for fermions?”
Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 4203 (2001). Included in appendix G
At the end of the discussion on superradiant Rayleigh scattering in Chapter 4, I brieﬂymentioned that Bose-Einstein condensates are not necessary for observing the phenomenon.
In principle, thermal clouds (“Boltzmannons”) or even an ensemble of fermionic atoms canbe used for the same experiments presented in previous chapters (4-6). However, thisconclusion is not obvious at ﬁrst sight, and the following chapter is dedicated to clarifying
this interesting but subtle matter.
In Chapter 4, superradiant Rayleigh scattering was fully described by the “gain” equation for matter waves (Eq. 4.1):
Ṅj = Rsin2 θj Ω N0 (Nj + 1)
8π/3 j(7.1)

It shows that the rate of Rayleigh scattering, which is proportional to the number ofatoms in the initial momentum state (N0 ), is bosonically stimulated by atoms in the recoilstate Nj and shows exponential growth when Nj

1. This quantum mechanical form of

the gain equation for matter waves rather indicates the opposite conclusion: macroscopic
population of the ﬁnal state is necessary for bosonic stimulation that drives the observed
ampliﬁcation. Moreover, the notion of “matter wave ampliﬁcation” becomes unclear for
fermions, since the number of fermionic atoms in a single mode cannot exceed one.
However, at the same time, we introduced the idea of Dicke superradiance and showed
one-to-one correspondence between those two forms of superradiance. Just as a reminder,73

the “dressed” condensate corresponds to the electronically excited state in Dicke superradicance. It can decay by spontaneous emission to a state with photon recoil, corresponding
to the ground state. Now, it is important to note that the rate of superradiant emission in
Dicke’s treatment is exactly the same as the bosonically stimulated rate in the accelerated
scattering. In other words, “bosonic stimulation” is already included in the superradiancepicture.
The correspondence goes as follows. Dicke regarded the two-level atom as a spin 1/2
system and introduced angular momentum quantum numbers. In this subspace, a fully
symmetric state of N0 (= N1 + N2 ) atoms has spin s = N0 /2 and magnetic quantum numberm = (N1 −N2 )/2. The squared matrix element for the transition |s, m → |s, m−1 inducedby the ladder operator S− is (s−m+1)(s+m). Expressing this by initial occupation numbers
N1 and N2 , one obtains N1 (N2 + 1) retrieving the formula of bosonic enhancement. Thus,
the collective enhancement in our superradiance and matter wave ampliﬁcation only basedon the superradiant (or symmetric) coupling between atoms and the radiation ﬁeld, whichkeeps atoms in cooperative (s = N0 /2) states.
Now, all the known properties of Dicke’s case are applicable to our previous experiments.
For example, it does not depend on statistics of particles explicitly. Quantum statistics iscompletely irrelevant for Dicke superradiance experiments. Moreover, the atomic sample
does not have to be made of a single species. The only requirement is that each particle
couple to the radiation ﬁeld in the same manner. Then it is fundamentally impossible todistinguish which atom has radiated the last photon, and the collective enhancement cantake place. However, this last statement raises an important question: how precise is therequirement? What will happen if the transition frequencies were slightly diﬀerent fromatom to atom, but those diﬀerences were smaller than the inverse of the observation time?
The condition for the phenomenon to happen can be summarized as follows: the accelerated scattering takes place when it can be ﬁnished within the coherencetime of the atomic ensemble. The diﬀerence in frequency does not matter if the associated coherence time (τcoh = 1/Γ2 ) is longer than the collective scattering time (1/G). Any
diﬀerence between atoms can lead to the reduction of coherence time: maybe the atoms are
simply diﬀerent species, or they are the same species but in diﬀerent momentum states. All
these eﬀects are now parameterized by a single quantity, the coherence time τcoh .
So the question whether the same experiments are possible with fermions is synonymouswith whether the same long coherence time can be achieved with a fermionic sample. At
least in principle, one can prepare a fermionic system with inﬁnite coherence time by startingout with a cloud which is in a single momentum state along the ẑ axis, but occupies many
momentum states along x̂ and ŷ. With a Bragg pulse transferring momentum q ẑ, one
can prepare a system which shows collective behavior for scattering particles or light with
momentum transfer q ẑ with an inﬁnite coherence time (Fig. 7-1 c). In this ensemble, thescattering is between the states |kz = 0 ⊗ |kx , ky  and |kz = q ⊗ |kx , ky . Therefore,

74

(a)

k

(b)

(c)

x

q

k

z
k

F

Figure 7-1: Momentum transfer (q (a) to a Bose-Einstein condensate, (b) to a Fermi sea, and(c) to a momentum squeezed degenerate Fermi cloud. Shown are the populated states vs.
the k-vector. The momentum spread kF of the Fermi sea introduces Doppler broadeningof the transition and a ﬁnite coherence time, whereas the coherence time in (a) and (c) ismuch longer due to a small momentum spread in the z-direction and could in principle beinﬁnite. Figure taken from Ref. [21].

we have enhanced scattering into the |kz = q quantum state, but the atoms may diﬀer
in other quantum numbers. What matters is only the symmetrization of the many-body
wavefunction along ẑ. The other quantum numbers ensure that there is no conﬂict with
the Pauli blocking for fermionic systems. This is analogous to the separation of electronic
wavefunctions into a symmetric part (e.g. the spin part) and an antisymmetric part (e.g.
the spatial part) where the coupling to an external ﬁeld (e.g. electron spin resonanceexperiment) only depends on the symmetric part.
So if one comes back to the initial question “Is matter wave ampliﬁcation possible forfermions?” then the answer is yes, if the system is prepared in a cooperative state andthe ampliﬁcation is faster than the coherence time. However, this ampliﬁcation does notpile up atoms in a single quantum state, but rather in states which are in the same (orapproximately the same) momentum state along ẑ, but diﬀer in other quantum numbers.
Therefore, this ampliﬁcation can be regarded as ampliﬁcation of a density modulation oras ampliﬁcation of spatial bunching of atoms. Alternatively, one can regard the density
modulation as a collective excitation of the system which involves bosonic quasi-particles(e.g. phonons). Superradiance and four-wave mixing (both with bosons and fermions) canthen be ascribed to bosonic stimulation by those quasi-particles.
The phase-coherent matter wave ampliﬁcation for fermions would start with a short
Bragg pulse which puts some of the atoms into a recoil state which is then ampliﬁed. This
superposition of two momentum states creates a matter wave grating. This can be regarded
as the interference pattern of each atom with itself with all the individual interference
patterns being exactly in phase. Matter wave ampliﬁcation occurs when a single laser beam
is diﬀracted oﬀ this grating increasing the amplitude of each atom to be in the recoiling state.
Therefore, the matter wave ampliﬁcation scheme of refs. [19, 152] would work for fermions,provided the whole process can be done in the short coherence time of the fermionic matterwave grating.
75

Of course, there is a fundamental diﬀerence between bosons and fermions which is
reﬂected in the symmetry of the total wavefunction. A bosonic system with two macroscopically occupied quantum states is always in a fully symmetric and maximally cooperative
state. In other words, if two independent Bose condensates cross each other, there is always
a macroscopic interference pattern (as observed experimentally [6]). It is this density modulation which can be ampliﬁed by the dynamic diﬀraction discussed here. If two beams offermions overlap, there is no macroscopic interference, unless the two beams were preparedin a symmetric way, e.g. by generating one of the beams by a Bragg pulse from the other
one.

76

Chapter 8

Imaging a vortex in a
Bose-Einstein condensate
In this chapter, I present the experiment on observation of vortex excitations in a BoseEinstein condensate reported in the following preprint:• S. Inouye, S. Gupta, T. Rosenband, A.P. Chikkatur, A. Görlitz, T.L. Gustavson, A.E.
Leanhardt, D.E. Pritchard, and W. Ketterle, “Observation of vortex phase singularities in Bose-Einstein condensates,” submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett. . Available as ane-print (cond-mat/0104444), and also included in Appendix H.

8.1

A little personal introduction to vortex experiments

The ﬁrst project I pursued in the “old lab” was observation of vortices in BEC, which
was one of the few projects that completely failed in our lab in these ﬁve years. Michael
Andrews (senior graduate student at that moment, now in Bell Labs) and I teamed up in
1997 and tried to observe centrifugal holes made by vortex excitations. Several excitation
schemes were experimentally investigated, but no holes were observed in the time-of-ﬂight
images for three months, and the project was terminated. Having this experience in mind,
I chose observation of the phase proﬁle of the vortex as my last project in this lab, closing
a full circle. This is a good way to see if the integral along my research experiences during
my Ph.D. years is zero or has some ﬁnite value.
The technique to observe vortices is as important as the technique to generate vortices.
The detection scheme we used in this experiment was already discussed in 1997 [153]. Long,
straight fringes due to the interference between two Bose-Einstein condensates observed inlate 1996 [6] constitute the base-line of this experiment. There, the two condensates were
produced by dividing a magnetic trap with a light sheet, and they were overlapped during
time-of-ﬂight. Several people pointed out that fringes should show characteristic fork-likestructure if one of the condensates contains a vortex excitation [154, 153, 155].
77

The interference technique works best if only one of the condensates contains vortex
excitations. The other condensate, which serves as a reference, should have a ﬂat phase all
across it. The way we tried to excite vortices in 1997 relied on the shift of the magnetic trap
center by additional bias ﬁelds, which exerts a force not only onto the “sample” condensate,
but also onto the “reference” condensate.
This time, vortices were created by moving a laser beam through one of the condensates.
This is a technique developed in the “new lab,” where superﬂuidity of condensates wasinvestigated. In the new lab experiment, heating or deformation of the condensate inducedby the stirring was measured as a function of the velocity of the stirrer [156, 157]. Bothmeasurements showed onset of dissipation at about one tenth of the speed of sound of thecondensate. Numerical simulations based on the Gross-Pitaevskii eq. indicate nucleationof vortex-pairs at this critical velocity [158]. Interferometric detection of the ﬂow patternshould give a deﬁnite answer to the cause of dissipation.

8.2

Vortices in BEC

Vortices in a Bose-Einstein condensate was ﬁrst observed in JILA, when they introduceda phase-winding into a two-component BEC by combining an ac-Stark shift from a rotating laser beam and a coherent rf-transition [159]. Vortices were also produced in ENS
Paris [160], and also later in MIT [161] by rotating a deformed trapping potential. In mostof the work at these places, vortices were identiﬁed by observing the density depletion at
the cores. The velocity ﬁeld was inferred indirectly, with the exception of the work at
Boulder [159]. The ﬂow of the superﬂuid is given by the gradient of the phase φ((r) of thewavefunction ψ((r) = ρ((r) exp(iφ((r)):(vs ((r) =∇φ((r),
M(8.1)

Interferometric detection of the phase proﬁle of the condensate leads to visualization of the
turbulent ﬂow of the superﬂuid.
The line integral of Eq. (8.1) around a closed path gives the quantization of circulation:(v ((r) · d(r =(φ((rf ) − φ((ri )) .
m

(8.2)

If the path is singly connected, there is no circulation. If the path is multiply connected(like around a vortex core) the circulation can take values nh/m (integer multiples of h/m),
since the phase is only deﬁned modulo 2π. As a result, the phase accumulated between two
points A and B can be diﬀerent depending on the path (Fig. 8-1). The integer quantum
number n is called the charge of the vortex. When the phase gradient is integrated along apath to the left of the vortex (path ACB), the accumulated phase diﬀers by 2nπ from thepath to the right (ADB).
78

Vortex core

A

(b)

(a)
Flow

D

C
B

Figure 8-1: Density (a) and phase (b) proﬁle of a moving condensate with singly-charged(n = 1) vortex. The density proﬁle shows the vortex core, whereas the phase pattern features
a fork-like dislocation at the position of the vortex. Interference between two initiallyseparated, freely expanding condensates produces exactly the same pattern as shown in(b), if one of the condensates contains a vortex. Figure taken from Ref. [24] .

(a)

(b)

Figure 8-2: Schematic (a) and phase-contrast images (b) of the condensates used for theexperiment. A blue-detuned laser beam (not shown in the ﬁgure) was focused into a lightsheet separating the two condensates in the magnetic trap. Another tightly focused laser
beam was swept through one of the condensates (the upper one in image (b)) to excite
vortices. The intensity of each laser beam was a factor of four higher than in the experiments
to enhance the depleted regions in the images. The images in (b) have a ﬁeld of view of
100 µm × 380 µm. For each image, the stirrer was advanced from left to right by 5 µm.
Figure taken from Ref. [24] .

The fork-like structure in interference fringes comes from this diﬀerence in phase evolution between the two sides of the vortex. When two condensates with relative velocity v
overlap, the total density shows straight interference fringes with a periodicity h/mv. If oneof the condensates contains a vortex of charge n, there are n more fringes on one side of thesingularity than on the other side (Fig. 8-1b). An observation of this fork-like dislocationin the interference fringes is a clear signature of a vortex.
The schematic of the experiment is shown in Fig. 8-2. The double-well potential was
created by adding a potential hill at the center of a cigar-shaped magnetic trap. For this,blue-detuned far oﬀ-resonant laser light (532 nm) was focused to form an elliptical lightsheet and was aligned to the center of the magnetic trap with the long axis of the sheet
perpendicular to the long axis of the condensate. After two condensates each containing∼ 1 × 106 atoms were formed in the double-well potential, we swept a second blue-detuned
laser beam through one of the condensates using an acousto-optical deﬂector (Fig. 8-2).
After sweeping the beam once across the condensate, the magnetic and optical ﬁelds were79

switched oﬀ and the two condensates expanded and overlapped during 41 ms time-of-ﬂight.
The atoms were then optically pumped into the F = 2 hyperﬁne ground state for 80 µs andsubsequently probed for 20 µs by absorption imaging tuned to the F = 2 to F  = 3 cyclingtransition.
Images of interfering condensates show a qualitative diﬀerence between stirred (Fig. 83(b-d)) and unperturbed states (Fig. 8-3(a)). Fork-like structures in the fringes were often
observed for stirred condensates, whereas unperturbed condensates always showed straightfringes. The charge of the vortices can be determined from the fork-like pattern. In Fig. 83(b), vortices were excited in the condensate on top, and the higher number of fringes on theleft side indicates higher relative velocity on this side, corresponding to counterclockwise
ﬂow. Fig. 8-3(c) shows a vortex of opposite charge. The double fork observed in Fig. 8-3(d)represents the phase pattern of a vortex pair. Multiply charged vortices, which are unstableagainst the break-up into singly charged vortices, were not observed.
For interferometric detection of vortices, other schemes have also been discussed. The
one employed here uses a separate condensate as a local oscillator. The other alternative isto split, shift and recombine a single condensate with vortices. In this case, the interference
pattern is more complicated because all singularities and distortions appear twice. The simulations in Ref. [162] show that the self-interference technique produces more complicatedfringe patterns. After completion of this work, we learned that this second technique wasused in ENS, Paris to observe the phase pattern of a single vortex [163].
By varying the speed of the laser beam sweep, we determined the velocity dependenceof the vortex nucleation process. The study suggests that the nucleation of vortices requires
a velocity of ∼ 0.5 µm/ms, corresponding to a Mach number vc /cs ∼ 0.08, consistent witha previous measurement [157].
The interferometric technique used here is a sensitive way to assess whether a condensate
has the assumed ground state wave function which is characterized by a uniform phase. By
delaying the release of the atoms from the trap by a variable amount of time, we canstudy the relaxation of the condensate towards its ground state. It was observed that thecondensate completely recovers its uniform phase after 50 − 100 ms. Vortices disappeared
after ∼ 30 ms.

80

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(d1)

(d2)

Figure 8-3: Observation of the phase singularities of vortices created by sweeping a laser
beam through a condensate. Without the sweep, straight fringes of ∼ 20 µm spacings wereobserved (a), while after the sweep, fork-like dislocations appeared (b-d). The speed of thesweep was 1.1 µm/ms, corresponding to a Mach number of ∼ 0.18. The ﬁeld of view of each
image is 1.1 mm × 0.38 mm. Fig. (d) shows a pair of dislocations with opposite circulation
characteristic of a vortex pair. At the bottom, magniﬁed images of the fork-like structuresare shown (d1) with lines to guide the eye (d2). The orientation of the condensates is thesame as in Fig. 8-2(b). Figure taken from Ref. [24] .

81

Chapter 9

Conclusion and Outlook
In this dissertation, interaction between coherent light and coherent atoms was studied indetail. Matter wave gratings played an important role throughout the work. I would liketo summarize the oﬀ-resonant scattering experiments ﬁrst, and then the work on vortex
excitations.
The unifying concept behind the four oﬀ-resonant light scattering experiments is fourwave mixing between light and atoms. Light can be diﬀracted by matter wave gratings,
and atoms can be diﬀracted by light gratings. The latter regime (Bragg spectroscopy) wasused to measure coherence properties of a condensate with spectroscopic precision. The
measured narrow linewidth of the two-photon process shows that the coherence length of acondensate is equal to its size.
It was found that the long coherence time of a Bose-Einstein condensate gave rise tosuperradiance based on coherent external motion of atoms. The underlying physics islight diﬀraction from a matter wave grating, which builds up atoms in a recoil mode. An
important idea introduced here is the “dressed condensate,” which describes a condensate
illuminated by a single oﬀ-resonant laser beam. This is a gain medium for matter waves
and light ﬁelds. Ampliﬁcation of both atomic and light ﬁelds were experimentally realized.
It was also shown that a long coherence time, rather than the macroscopic occupation of asingle quantum state is most important to these phenomena.
The idea of a “dressed condensate” opened up several possibilities. One of the mostnotable applications is the creation of entangled atom-photon pairs [164]. Superradiance canbe regarded as ampliﬁed parametric down-conversion of a dressed condensate. Nowadays
the most popular technique for generating entangled photon pairs is spontaneous parametricdown-conversion in a nonlinear crystal. By driving a dressed condensate below the thresholdfor superradiance, entangled atom-photon pairs can be generated.
From a practical point of view, the most important result in this dissertation is therealization of matter wave ampliﬁcation. This parametric ampliﬁer is easy to realize andcontrol. The gain is proportional to the “dressing” light intensity, which can be as low
as 1 mW/cm2 for our conditions. The only obvious disadvantage is its narrow bandwidth82

— the dressed condensate can only amplify atoms within the momentum range that canbe reached by scattering a photon from the dressing beam. The ampliﬁer works best for
matter waves with a well-deﬁned momentum.
In the vortex experiment, vortex excitations in Bose-Einstein condensates were studied
using an interferometric technique. Vortices were excited by moving a laser beam acrossthe condensate, and they were clearly imaged as topological singularities. This technique
is suited for the study of complicated ﬂowﬁeld of superﬂuids, e.g. when multiple vortices
with opposite charges are present.
There are many issues of vortex physics that remain unexplored, including vortices
in two-dimensional condensates (condensates in lower dimensions were recently realizedin our laboratory [165]), pinning of vortices by additional laser beams, and interactions
between vortices. This work has proven that an atomic physics technique, matter wave
interferometry, is a powerful tool to probe the nucleation of vortices, a problem of manybody physics. This is yet another example of the successful interplay between atomic physics
and condensed matter physics, which has been a main stay of BEC research. I am sure that
this collaboration will bear many interesting fruits in the future.

83

Appendix A

Observation of Feshbachresonances in a Bose-Einsteincondensate
This appendix includes the following paper [8]: S. Inouye, M.R. Andrews, J. Stenger, H.-J.
Miesner, D.M. Stamper-Kurn, and W. Ketterle, “Observation of Feshbach resonances in a
Bose-Einstein condensate,” Nature 392, 151 (1998).
This work has received a lot of attention for the following three reasons. First, thescattering length was modiﬁed by an external magnetic ﬁeld, opening up new possibilities
for the study and manipulation of Bose-Einstein condensates. Second, anomalous trap losses
observed at these resonances imposed a new challenge to the collisional physics community.
Third, the position of the Feshbach resonances gave a unique opportunity to determine
molecular interaction parameters. Relevant new results are listed below.
• Bose-Einstein condensates of 85 Rb atoms were produced [99]. A Feshbach resonance
was used to change the sign of the scattering length (which is negative at zero biasﬁeld) to a positive value and stabilize a condensate with large number of atoms.
Collapse of a large condensate as well as condensates in the hydrodynamic regime
were realized by modulating the scattering length.
• More than 25 Feshbach resonances were found in Cs, which led to the unambiguous
and accurate determination of Cs ultracold collision properties [166]• (Studies on trap-losses are summarized in the next appendix (Appendix B).)
Optically induced Feshbach resonances were also observed [167]. The scattering properties were varied by changing either the intensity or the detuning of a laser tuned near aphotoassociation transition to a molecular state in the dimer. Feshbach resonances were84

also studied intensively in connection with the production of a condensate of diatomic
molecules [168, 169].

85

articles

Observation of Feshbachresonances in a
Bose–Einstein condensate

8

S. Inouye*, M. R. Andrews*†, J. Stenger*, H.-J. Miesner*, D. M. Stamper-Kurn* & W. Ketterle** Department of Physics and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA. ............ ............ ............ ........... ............ ............ ............ ........... ............ ............ ............ ........... ............ ............ ............ ........... ............ ............ ............ ............ ...........

It has long been predicted that the scattering of ultracold atoms can be altered significantly through a so-called‘Feshbach resonance’. Two such resonances have now been observed in optically trapped Bose–Einstein condensatesof sodium atoms by varying an external magnetic field. They gave rise to enhanced inelastic processes and a dispersive
variation of the scattering length by a factor of over ten. These resonances open new possibilities for the study andmanipulation of Bose–Einstein condensates.

Bose–Einstein condensates of atomic gases offer new opportunities
for studying quantum-degenerate fluids1–5. All the essential properties of Bose condensed systems—the formation and shape of thecondensate, the nature of its collective excitations and statisticalfluctuations, and the formation and dynamics of solitons andvortices—are determined by the strength of the atomic interactions. In contrast to the situation for superfluid helium, theseinteractions are weak, allowing the phenomena to be theoreticallydescribed from ‘first principles’. Furthermore, in atomic gases theinteractions can be altered, for instance by employing different
species, changing the atomic density, or, as in the present work,
merely by varying a magnetic field.
At low temperatures, the interaction energy in a cloud of atoms is
proportional to the density and a single atomic parameter, thescattering length a which depends on the quantum-mechanicalphase shift in an elastic collision. It has been predicted that the
scattering length can be modified by applying external magnetic6–10,
optical11,12 or radio-frequency13 (r.f.) fields. Those modifications are
only pronounced in a so-called ‘‘Feshbach resonance’’14, when aquasibound molecular state has nearly zero energy and couples
resonantly to the free state of the colliding atoms. In a timedependent picture, the two atoms are transferred to the quasiboundstate, ‘stick’ together and then return to an unbound state. Such aresonance strongly affects the scattering length (elastic channel), butalso affects inelastic processes such as dipolar relaxation6,7 and threebody recombination. Feshbach resonances have so far been studied
at much higher energies15 by varying the collision energy, but here
we show that they can be ‘tuned’ to zero energy to be resonant for
ultracold atoms. The different magnetic moments of the free andquasibound states allowed us to tune these resonances with magnetic fields, and as a result, minute changes in the magnetic fieldstrongly affected the properties of a macroscopic system.
Above and below a Feshbach resonance, the scattering length acovers the full continuum of positive and negative values. Thisshould allow the realization of condensates over a wide range ofinteraction strengths. By setting a ⬇ 0, one can create a condensate
with essentially non-interacting atoms, and by setting a ⬍ 0 one canmake the system unstable and observe its collapse. Rapid tuning ofan external magnetic field around a Feshbach resonance will lead tosudden changes of the scattering length. This opens the way tostudies of new dynamical effects such as novel forms of collective
oscillations or the sudden collapse of a large condensate when the
scattering length is switched from positive to negative16.
† Present address: Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, New Jersey 07974, USA.

NATURE | VOL 392 | 12 MARCH 1998

Theoretical predictions

Calculations for Feshbach resonances in external magnetic fields
have been reported for the lower hyperfine states of the atoms Li(ref. 8), K (ref. 10), Na (ref. 8), Rb (ref. 9) and Cs (refs 6, 7). They are
typically spaced by several hundred gauss, and for Li and Na occur
outside the range where states in the lower hyperfine manifold are
weak-field-seeking and can be magnetically trapped. Recent experimental efforts to observe Feshbach resonances have concentrated on
87
Rb (ref. 17) and on 85Rb (ref. 18 and C. E. Wieman, personalcommunication) where Feshbach resonances have been predicted atrelatively low magnetic fields9. However, our recently demonstrated
all-optical confinement of a Bose condensate19 opened the possibility of observing Feshbach resonances for strong-field-seeking states
which cannot be trapped in a d.c. magnetic trap. The opticaltrapping potential is unaffected by magnetic fields and is independent of the hyperfine ground state. We report here the observationof two Feshbach resonances of sodium in a strong-field-seeking
state.
Several Feshbach resonances in sodium are caused by quasiboundhyperfine states of the second highest vibrational level, n ¼ 14, of
the triplet potential of the sodium dimer. The lowest magnetic fieldvalue B0 for a strong Feshbach resonance in sodium was predicted tolie in the range 760 ⬍ B0 ⬍ 925 G (B. J. Verhaar and F. A. van
Abeelen, personal communication). It occurs in collisions between
atoms in the lowest hyperfine state jmS ¼ ⫺ 1=2; mI ¼ þ3=2,which correlates with the jF ¼ 1; mF ¼ þ1 state at low fields (S, I
and F are the usual quantum numbers for the electronic, nuclear
and total spin, respectively). This Feshbach resonance is due to aquasibound molecular state jS ¼ 1; mS ¼ þ1; I ¼ 1; mI ¼ þ1. A
much weaker resonance due to a jS ¼ 1; mS ¼ þ1; I ¼ 3; mI ¼ þ1state (which is almost degenerate with the other quasibound state)
was predicted to occur 50 to 75 G below.
Near a Feshbach resonance, the scattering length a should vary
dispersively as a function of magnetic field B (ref. 8):

a ¼ ã 1 ⫺∆B ⫺ B0ð1Þ

where ∆ parametrizes the width of the resonance at B ¼ B0 , and ã isthe scattering length outside the resonance. For sodium, ã wasfound spectroscopically to be 2.75 nm at zero field, and increases tothe triplet scattering length of 4.5 nm (ref. 20) at high magnetic
fields. The widths ∆ for the strong and weak resonance werepredicted to be 1 G and 0.01 G, respectively (B. J. Verhaar and F. A.
van Abeelen, personal communication).

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articles
Experimental set-up

Bose–Einstein condensates in the jF ¼ 1; mF ¼ ⫺ 1 state were
produced as in our previous work by laser cooling, followed byevaporative cooling in a magnetic trap21. The condensates weretransferred into an optical dipole trap formed at the focus of an
infrared laser beam19. Atoms were then spin-flipped with nearly
100% efficiency to the jF ¼ 1; mF ¼ þ1 state with an adiabatic r.f.
sweep while applying a 1 G bias field. Without large modifications ofour magnetic trapping coils, we could provide bias fields of up to⬃1,200 G, but only by using coils producing axial curvature21,
which for high-field-seeking states generated a repulsive axial
potential. At the highest magnetic fields, this repulsion was stronger
than the axial confinement provided by the optical trap. To preventthe atoms from escaping, two ‘end-caps’ of far-off-resonant bluedetuned laser light were placed at the ends of the condensate,creating a repulsive potential, and confining the atoms axially(Fig. 1a). For this, green light at 514 nm from an argon-ion laser
was focused into two sheets about 200 ␮m apart. The focus of the
optical trap was placed near the minimum of the bias field in orderto minimize the effect of the destabilizing magnetic field curvature.
The axial trapping potential at high fields was approximately ‘‘W’’shaped (Fig. 1b), and had a minimum near one of the end-caps as
observed by phase-contrast imaging22 (Fig. 1c, d).
The calibration factor between the current (up to ⬃400 A) in thecoils and the magnetic bias field was determined with an accuracy of
2% by inducing r.f. transitions within the jF ¼ 1 ground-state
hyperfine manifold at about 40 G. Additionally, an optical resonance was found around 1,000 G, where the Zeeman shift equalled
the probe light detuning of about 1.7 GHz and led to a sign-reversalof the phase-contrast signal. These two calibrations agreed within
their uncertainties.
The condensate was observed in the trap directly using phasecontrast imaging22 or by using time-of-flight absorption
imaging1,2,21. In the latter case, the optical trap was suddenly
switched off, and the magnetic bias field was shut off 1–2 ms laterto ensure that the high-field value of the scattering length was
responsible for the acceleration of the atoms. After ballistic expansion of the condensate (either 12 or 20 ms), the atoms were optically
pumped into the jF ¼ 2 ground state and probed using resonant
light driving the cycling transition. The disk-like expansion of thecloud and the radial parabolic density profile were clear evidence forthe presence of a Bose condensed cloud.
Locating the resonances

When the magnetic field is swept across a Feshbach resonance one
would expect to lose a condensate due to an enhanced rate of
inelastic collisions (caused either by the collapse in the region ofnegative scattering length or by an enhanced rate coefficient for
inelastic collisions). This allowed us to implement a simple procedure to locate the resonances: we first extended the field ramp
until the atoms were lost and then used successively narrower fieldintervals to localize the loss. This procedure converged much fasterthan a point-by-point search. As we could take many non-destructive
phase-contrast images during the magnetic field ramp, the sharp
onset of trap loss at the resonance was easily monitored (Fig. 1c, d).
The most robust performance was obtained by operating theoptical dipole trap at 10 mW laser power focused to a beam waist of
6 ␮m, resulting in tight confinement of the condensate and therefore rather short lifetimes owing to three-body recombination19.
This required that the magnetic field be ramped up in two stages: afast ramp at a rate of ⬃100 G ms−1 to a value slightly below that
expected for a Feshbach resonance, followed by a slow ramp at a rate
between 0.05 and 0.3 G ms−1 to allow for detailed observation. Near
907 G, we observed a dramatic loss of atoms, as shown in Figs 1c and
2a. This field value was reproducible to better than 0.5 G and had acalibration uncertainty of ⫾20 G.
To distinguish between an actual resonance and a threshold fortrap loss, we also approached the resonance from above. Fields
above the Feshbach resonance were reached by ramping at a fast rateof 200 G ms−1, thus minimizing the time spent near the resonanceand the accompanying losses. The number of atoms above theresonance was typically three times smaller than below. Approaching the resonance from above, a similarly sharp loss phenomenon
was observed about 1 G higher in field than from below (Fig. 2a),which roughly agrees with the predicted width of the resonance. A
second resonance was observed 54 ⫾ 1 G below the first one, withthe observed onset of trap loss at least a factor of ten sharper than for
the first. As the upper resonance was only reached by passing
through the lower one, some losses of atoms were unavoidable;
for example, when the lower resonance was crossed at 2 G ms−1,
Figure 1 Observation of the Feshbach resonance at 907 G using phase-contrastaimaging in an optical trap. A rapid sequence (100 Hz) of non-destructive, in situ
phase-contrast images of a trapped cloud (which appears black) is shown. As thebmagnetic field was increased, the cloud suddenly disappeared for atoms in the
j mF ¼ þ1 state (see images in c), whereas nothing happened for a cloud in the
j mF ¼ ⫺ 1 state (images in d). The height of the images is 140 ␮m. A diagram ofthe optical trap is shown in a. It consisted of one red-detuned laser beam

200 µmproviding radial confinement, and two blue-detuned laser beams acting as endcaps (shown as ovals). The minimum of the magnetic field was slightly offset from

c

m =+1
F

the centre of the optical trap. As a result, the condensate (shaded area) was
pushed by the magnetic field curvature towards one of the end-caps. The axial
profile of the total potential is shown in b.

908 G

905 G

d

152

m =-1
F

905 G

Magnetic field

908 G(0 ms)(Time)(70 ms)Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 1998

NATURE | VOL 392 | 12 MARCH 1998

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articles
about 80% of the atoms were lost. This, coupled with the stability
and finite programming speed of the power supplies, limited theramp rates to those given above.
The observation of twin resonances separated by 54 ⫾ 1 G, withthe weaker one at lower field, exactly matches the theoretically
predicted pattern and thus strongly confirms our interpretation. No
resonance phenomena were observed in the jmF ¼ ⫺ 1 state at any
field up to 1,000 G, in agreement with theory which predictedresonances for this state only at much higher fields.
Changing the scattering length

The trap loss measurements easily located the Feshbach resonances.
To measure the variation of the scattering length around theseresonances, we determined the interaction energy of a trapped
condensate. This was done by suddenly switching off the trap,
allowing the stored interaction energy to be converted into thekinetic energy of a freely expanding condensate and measuring it bytime-of-flight absorption imaging1,2,21. The interaction energy is
proportional to the scattering length and the average density of thecondensate n:
2p~2
a n
ð2Þ
m
where N is the number of condensed atoms of mass m. For a large
condensate the kinetic energy in the trap is negligible (Thomas–
Fermi limit), and EI is equal to the kinetic energy EK of the freely
expanding condensate EK =N ¼ mv2rms =2, where vrms is the rootmean-square velocity of the atoms. For a three-dimensional harEI =N ¼

Figure 2 Observation of the Feshbach resonance at 907 G using time-of-flightabsorption imaging. a, Number of atoms in the condensate versus magnetic field.
Field values above the resonance were reached by quickly crossing theresonance from below and then slowly approaching from above. b, The
5=N calculated from the released energy,
normalized scattering length a=ã ⬀ vrms

together with the predicted shape (equation (1), solid line). The values of themagnetic field in the upper scan relative to the lower one have an uncertainty of⬍0.5 G.
NATURE | VOL 392 | 12 MARCH 1998

monic oscillator potential one finds n ⬀ NðNaÞ ⫺ 3=5 (ref. 23) (Wenote that, for a general power-law potential Sicix pii, one obtains
n ⬀ NðNaÞk ⫺ 1 , where k ¼ 1=ð1 þ Si 1=pi Þ). Thus, the value of thescattering length scales as:v5a ⬀ rms
ð3Þ
N
Both vrms and N can be directly evaluated from absorption images offreely expanding condensates. For a cigar-shaped condensate thefree expansion is predominantly radial, and so the contribution of
the axial dimension to vrms could be neglected. The quantity v5rms/N(equation (3)), normalized to unity outside the resonance, should
be identical to a/ã (equation (1)). This quantity was measured
around the resonance at 907 G and is shown in Fig. 2b together withthe theoretical prediction of a resonance with width ∆ ¼ 1 G. The
data clearly displays the predicted dispersive shape and shows
evidence for a variation in the scattering length by more than afactor of ten.
We now discuss the assumptions for equation (3) and show that it
is approximately valid for our conditions. (1) We assumed that thecondensate remains in equilibrium during the magnetic field ramp.
This is the case if the adiabatic condition ȧ=a p qi holds for the
temporal change of the scattering length16, and a similar condition
for the loss of atoms (the qi are the trapping frequencies). For thecondensate’s fast radial dynamics (qr ⬇ 2p ⫻ 1:5 kHz) this condition is fulfilled, whereas for the slower axial motion(qz ⬇ 2p ⫻ 0:1 kHz) it breaks down close to or within the resonance. In this case the density would approach the two-dimensional
scaling N(Na)−1/2, but the values for a/ã (Fig. 2b) would differ by atmost 50%. (2) The second assumption was a three-dimensional
harmonic trap. If the axial potential has linear contributions, thedensity scales instead like N(Na)−2/3 resulting in at most a 50%
change for a/ã. (3) We assumed that contributions of collective
excitations to the released energy were small. Axial striations wereobserved in free expansion for both jmF ¼ þ1 and jmF ¼ ⫺ 1
atoms (probably created by the changing potential during the fastmagnetic field ramp). However, the small scatter of points outside
the resonance in Fig. 2b, which do not show any evidence ofoscillations, suggests that the contribution of excitations to thereleased energy is negligible. (4) We assumed a sudden switch-off ofthe trap and ballistic expansion. The inhomogeneous bias field
during the first 1–2 ms of free expansion accelerated the axial
expansion, but had a negligible effect on the expansion of thecondensate in the radial direction, which was evaluated for Fig. 2b.
None of the corrections (1)–(4) discussed above affect ourconclusion that the scattering length varies dispersively near a
Feshbach resonance. More accurate experiments should be donewith a homogeneous bias field. In addition, an optical trap withlarger volume and lower density would preclude the need to ramp
the field quickly because three-body recombination would be
reduced.
The trap losses observed around the Feshbach resonances meritfurther study as they might impose practical limits on the possibilities for varying the scattering length. An increase of the dipolar
relaxation rate near Feshbach resonances has been predicted6,7, but
for atoms in the lowest hyperfine state no such inelastic binary
collisions are possible. Therefore, the observed trap loss is probably
due to three-body collisions. In this case the loss rate is characterized
by the coefficient K3, defined as Ṅ=N ¼ ⫺ K 3 n2 . So far, there is no
theoretical work on K3 near a Feshbach resonance. An analysis basedon Fig. 2 shows that K3 increased on both sides of the resonance,
because the loss rate increased while the density decreased or stayed
constant. In any case, the fact that we observed Feshbach resonances
at high atomic densities (⬃1015 cm−3) strongly enhanced this loss
process, which can be avoided with a condensate at lower density ina modified optical trap. Control of the bias field with a precisionbetter than ⬃10−4 will be necessary to achieve negative or extremely
large values of the scattering length in a stable way.

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articles
A tunable condensate

We have observed two Feshbach resonances for Bose–Einsteincondensates of sodium through the abrupt loss of atoms, andobtained strong evidence for a dispersive variation of the scattering
length by a factor of more than ten. ‘Tuning’ of the scattering length
should become an important tool for ‘designing’ atomic quantum
gases with novel properties; for example, to create ideal Bose–
Einstein condensates with nearly zero scattering length, and toobtain a detailed picture of the collapse of a condensate withnegative scattering length, which is so far not fully understood.
Tuning the scattering length can also be used to vary interactions
between different species24 and thus control the phase diagram ofmulti-component condensates, possibly switching from interpenetrating superfluids to phase separation25. Feshbach resonances may
also be important in atom optics, for modifying the atomic interactions in an atom laser, or more generally, for controlling nonlinear䡺
coefficients in atom optics with coherent beams of atoms.
Received 18 February; accepted 19 February 1998.
1. Anderson, M. H., Ensher, J. R., Matthews, M. R., Wieman, C. E. & Cornell, E. A. Observation of BoseEinstein condensation in a dilute atomic vapor. Science 269, 198–201 (1995).
2. Davis, K. B. et al. Bose-Einstein condensation in a gas of sodium atoms. Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 3969–3973(1995).
3. Bradley, C. C., Sackett, C. A. & Hulet, R. G. Bose-Einstein condensation of lithium: Observation oflimited condensate number. Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 985–989 (1997).
4. Georgia Southern University BEC home page, http://amo.phy.gasou.edu/bec.html.
5. Bradley, C. C., Sackett, C. A., Tollett, J. J. & Hulet, R. G. Evidence of Bose-Einstein condensation in an
atomic gas with attractive interactions. Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 1687–1690 (1995).
6. Tiesinga, E., Moerdijk, A. J., Verhaar, B. J. & Stoof, H. T. C. Conditions for Bose-Einstein condensationin magnetically trapped atomic cesium. Phys. Rev. A 46, R1167–R1170 (1992).
7. Tiesinga, E., Verhaar, B. J. & Stoof, H. T. C. Threshold and resonance phenomena in ultracold groundstate collisions. Phys. Rev. A 47, 4114–4122 (1993).
8. Moerdijk, A. J., Verhaar, B. J. & Axelsson, A. Resonances in ultracold collisions of 6Li, 7Li and 23Na.
Phys. Rev. A 51, 4852–4861 (1995).

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9. Vogels, J. M. et al. Prediction of Feshbach resonances in collisions of ultracold rubidium atoms. Phys.
Rev. A 56, R1067–R1070 (1997).
10. Boesten, H. M. J. M., Vogels, J. M., Tempelaars, J. G. C. & Verhaar, B. J. Properties of cold collisions of
39
K atoms and of 41K atoms in relation to Bose-Einstein condensation. Phys. Rev. A 54, R3726–R3729(1996).
11. Fedichev, P. O., Kagan, Yu., Shlyapnikov, G. V. & Walraven, J. T. M. Influence of nearly resonant lighton the scattering length in low-temperature atomic gases. Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 2913–2916 (1996).
12. Bohn, J. L. & Julienne, P. S. Prospects for influencing the scattering lengths with far-off-resonant light.
Phys. Rev. A 56, 1486–1491 (1997).
13. Moerdijk, A. J., Verhaar, B. J. & Nagtegaal, T. M. Collisions of dressed ground-state atoms. Phys. Rev. A
53, 4343–4351 (1996).
14. Feshbach, H. A unified theory of nuclear reactions. II. Ann. Phys. 19, 287–313 (1962).
15. Bryant, H. C. et al. Observation of resonances near 11 eV in the photodetachment cross-section of theH− ion. Phys. Rev. Lett. 38, 228–230 (1977).
16. Kagan, Yu., Surkov, E. L. & Shlyapnikov, G. V. Evolution and global collapse of trapped Bose
condensates under variations of the scattering length. Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 2604–2607 (1997).
17. Newbury, N. R., Myatt, C. J. & Wieman, C. E. s-wave elastic collisions between cold ground-state 87Rb
atom. Phys. Rev. A 51, R2680–R2683 (1995).
18. Courteille, P. & Heinzen, D. Paper presented at SPIE Photonics West, 24–30 Jan., San Jose, California(1998).
19. Stemper-Kurn, D. M. et al. Optical confinement of a Bose-Einstein condensate. Phys. Rev. Lett. (in thepress).
20. Tiesinga, E. et al. A spectroscopic determination of scattering lengths for sodium atom collisions.
J. Res. Natl Inst. Stand. Technol. 101, 505–520 (1996).
21. Mewes, M.-O. et al. Bose-Einstein condensation in a tightly confining d.c. magnetic trap. Phys. Rev.
Lett. 77, 416–419 (1996).
22. Andrews, M. R. et al. Propagation of sound in a Bose–Einstein condensate. Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 553–
556 (1997).
23. Baym, G. & Pethick, C. J. Ground-state properties of magnetically trapped Bose-condensed rubidiumgas. Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 6–9 (1996).
24. van Abeelen, F. A., Verhaar, B. J. & Moerdijk, A. J. Sympathetic cooling of 6Li atoms. Phys. Rev. A 55,
4377–4381 (1997).
25. Ho, T.-L. & Shenoy, V. B. Binary mixtures of Bose condensates of alkali atoms. Phys. Rev. Lett. 77,
3276–3279 (1996).
Acknowledgements. We thank J. M. Vogels for discussions, A. P. Chikkatur for experimental assistance,
and B. J. Verhaar and F. A. van Abeelen for providing updated theoretical predictions. We also thank
D. Kleppner, D. E. Pritchard and R. A. Rubenstein for a critical reading of the manuscript. This work was
supported by the Office of Naval Research, NSF, Joint Services Electronics Program (ARO), and the David
and Lucile Packard Foundation. J.S. acknowledges support from the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation,
and D.M.S.-K. was supported by the JSEP graduate fellowship program.
Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to W.K.

Nature © Macmillan Publishers Ltd 1998

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Appendix B

Strongly Enhanced Inelastic
Collisions in a Bose-Einstein
Condensate near Feshbach
ResonancesThis appendix includes the following preprint [9]: J. Stenger, S. Inouye, M.R. Andrews, H.J. Miesner, D.M. Stamper-Kurn, and W. Ketterle, “Strongly Enhanced Inelastic Collisions
in a Bose-Einstein Condensate near Feshbach Resonances,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 2422
(1999).
Several proposals have been made on the origin of these extraordinary large trap losses
reported in this publication. They include a “two-body” mechanism where the formation ofa molecular condensate of quasi-bound atom pairs was considered [170, 171], and a “threebody” mechanism where the deactivation of the resonant molecular state by interaction
with a third condensate atom was considered [172, 173]. The decay rates near the Feshbachresonance were also experimentally studied in detail with 85 Rb [174].

90

VOLUME 82, NUMBER 12

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

22 MARCH 1999

Strongly Enhanced Inelastic Collisions in a Bose-Einstein Condensate
near Feshbach Resonances
J. Stenger, S. Inouye, M. R. Andrews,* H.-J. Miesner, D. M. Stamper-Kurn, and W. Ketterle
Department of Physics and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139(Received 24 September 1998)
The properties of Bose-Einstein condensed gases can be strongly altered by tuning the external magnetic field near a Feshbach resonance. Feshbach resonances affect elastic collisions and lead to theobserved modification of the scattering length. However, as we report here, the observed rate of inelastic collisions was strongly enhanced in a sodium Bose-Einstein condensate when the scattering length
was tuned to both larger or smaller values than the off-resonant value. These strong losses impose
severe limitations for using Feshbach resonances to tune the properties of Bose-Einstein condensates.
[S0031-9007(99)08767-0]
PACS numbers: 03.75.Fi, 05.30. – d, 32.80.Pj, 65.50. + m

Most of the properties of Bose-Einstein condensates indilute alkali gases are dominated by two-body collisions,which can be characterized by the s-wave scattering lengtha. The sign and the absolute value of the scattering length
determine, e.g., stability, internal energy, formation rate,
size, and collective excitations of a condensate. Near a
Feshbach resonance the scattering length varies dispersively [1,2] covering the whole range of positive and negative values. Thus it should be possible to study stronglyinteracting, weakly or noninteracting, or collapsing condensates [3], all with the same alkali species and experimental setup.
A Feshbach resonance occurs when the energy of amolecular (quasi-) bound state is tuned to the energy of
two colliding atoms by applying an external magnetic
field. Such resonances have been observed in a BoseEinstein condensate of Na 共F 苷 1, mF 苷 11) atoms at 853
and 907 G [4,5], and in two experiments with cold cloudsof 85 Rb (F 苷 2, mF 苷 22) atoms at 164 G [6]. In thesodium experiment, the scattering length a was observed
to vary dispersively as a function of the magnetic field B,
in agreement with the theoretical prediction [2]:
µ
∂
D
,
(1)
a 苷 a0 1 1
B0 2 B
where a0 is the off-resonant scattering length, and D
characterizes the width of the resonance.
In this Letter we report on the observation of a broad
Feshbach resonance in sodium in the F 苷 1, mF 苷 21 state
at 1195 G, and we investigate the strong inelastic processes
accompanying all three sodium resonances, which resultin a rapid loss of atoms while approaching or crossing theresonances with the external magnetic field. The losses
show an unpredicted dependence on the external magnetic
field and impose strong constraints on future experiments
exploiting the tunability of the scattering length.
The experimental setup is very similar to that describedin [4]. Magnetically trapped condensates in the F 苷 1,
mF 苷 21 state were transferred into an optical trap
2422

0031-9007兾99兾82(12)兾2422(4)$15.00

consisting of a focused far off-resonant infrared laser
beam [7]. The atoms could be transferred to the mF 苷
11 state by an rf pulse in a 1 G bias field. For the studiesof the Feshbach resonances, bias fields of up to 1500 G
were applied with ramp speeds of up to 1000 G兾ms.
Inhomogeneities in the bias field exerted a force mainlyin the axial direction. To prevent atoms from escaping,green light from an argon-ion laser was focused into twolight sheets at the ends of the cigar shaped condensates,
forming repulsive light barriers. The resulting trapping
frequencies were around 1500 Hz radially and 150 Hz
axially. The trap losses were studied by ramping the bias
field with different ramp speeds to various field values
near the resonances. The atoms were probed in ballistic
expansion after suddenly switching off the optical trap.
The magnetic field was switched off 2 ms later to ensurethat the high field value of the scattering length was
responsible for the acceleration of the atoms. After 7–
25 ms free expansion the atoms were optically pumped
into the F 苷 2 state and observed in absorption using thecycling transition in a small bias field of 0.5 G.
The number of atoms N, the scattering length a, and themean density 具n典 could be obtained from the absorption images. N is calculated from the integrated optical density.
The mean-field energy 2p h̄ 2 a 具n典兾m is converted into ki2
兾2 after switching off the trap. The
netic energy myrms
2
can be extracted from theroot-mean-square velocity yrms
size of the cloud after the time of flight. As discussed inRef. [4], the mean density 具n典 is proportional to N共Na兲23兾5
for a three-dimensional harmonic oscillator potential, andthus the scattering length a scales asy5a ⬃ rms .
(2)
N
5
兾N
Normalized to unity far away from the resonance, yrms
is equal to a兾a0 . The proportionality factor in Eq. (2) involves the mean trapping frequency which was not accurately measured. However, we can obtain absolutevalues by multiplying the normalized scattering length© 1999 The American Physical Society

VOLUME 82, NUMBER 12

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

with the theoretical value of a0 . The off-resonance scattering length a0 苷 2.75 nm of sodium at zero field increases
to the triplet scattering length a0 苷 aT 苷 3.3 nm [8] at thehigh fields of the resonances. Using this value, the meandensity is obtained from the root-mean-square velocity
具n典 苷2m2 yrms.
4p h̄2 a(3)

The peak density n0 is given by n0 苷 共7兾4兲 具n典 in aparabolic potential.
The experimental results for the 907 and 1195 G resonances are shown in Fig. 1. The number of atoms, thenormalized scattering length, and the density are plottedversus the magnetic field. The resonances can be identified by enhanced losses. The 907 G resonance could beapproached from higher field values by crossing it firstwith very high ramp speed. This was not possible for the1195 G resonance due to strong losses, and also not for the
853 G resonance due to its proximity to the 907 G resonance and the technical difficulty of suddenly reversing themagnetic field ramp. For the 907 G resonance the dispersive change in a can clearly be identified. The solid lines
correspond to the predicted shapes with width parameters
D 苷 1 G in Fig. 1(b), and D 苷 24 G in Fig. 1(e). The
negative width parameter for the 1195 G resonance reflects
the decreasing scattering length when the resonance is approached from the low field side. The uncertainties of thepositions are mainly due to uncertainties of the magnetic
field calibration.
The time dependent loss of atoms from the condensate
can be parametrized as

Number of Atoms N

10

Scattering Length a/a0

where Ki denotes an i-body loss coefficient, and 具n典 thespatially averaged density. In general, the density n depends on the number of atoms N in the trap, and theloss curve is nonexponential. One-body losses—e.g., due
to background gas collisions or spontaneous light scattering—are negligible under our experimental conditions.
An increase of the dipolar relaxation rate (two-body collisions) near Feshbach resonances has been predicted [1].
However, for sodium in the lowest energy hyperfine stateF 苷 1, mF 苷 11 binary inelastic collisions are not possible. Collisions involving more than three atoms are
not expected to contribute. Thus the experimental studyof the loss processes focuses on the three-body losses
around the F 苷 1, mF 苷 11 resonances, while both twoand three-body losses must be considered for the F 苷 1,
mF 苷 21 resonance.
Figures 1(c) and 1(f) show a decreasing or nearly constant density when the resonances were approached. Thus
the enhanced trap losses can be explained only with increasing coefficients for the inelastic processes. The quan2ᠨ
典 is plotted versus the magnetic field in Fig. 2tity N兾N具nfor both the 907 G and the 1195 G resonances. Assuming that mainly three-body collisions cause the trap losses,
these plots correspond to the coefficient K3 . For the 907 G
2
ᠨ(1195 G) resonance, the off-resonant value of N兾N具n
典
is about 20 (60) times larger than the value for K3 measured at low fields [7]. Close to the resonances, theloss coefficient strongly increases both when tuning the

d)

10

5

0.13 G/ms
0.31 G/ms-0.06 G/ms

10

3

10

0.28 G/ms

4

10

b)

e)
1

1
0.1
( )

c)

10

( )

10

f)

14

-3

10

(4)

4

10

Mean Density <n> [10 cm ]

a)

X
Nᠨ
苷 2 Ki 具ni21 典 ,NimF = -1

5

mF = +1

6

22 MARCH 1999

5

5

0

FIG. 1. Number of atoms N,
normalized scattering lengtha兾a0 , and mean density 具n典
versus the magnetic field near
the 907 and 1195 G Feshbachresonances. The different symbols for the data near the907 G resonance correspondto different ramp speeds ofthe magnetic field. All data
were extracted from time-offlight images. The errors due
to background noise of theimages, thermal atoms, andloading fluctuations of the
optical trap are indicated bysingle error bars in each curve.

0
895

900

905

910

Magnetic Field [G]

915

1170

1180

1190

1200

Magnetic Field [G]2423

VOLUME 82, NUMBER 12

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

scattering length larger or smaller than the off-resonant
value. Since the density is nearly constant near the 1195 G
resonance, the data can also be interpreted by a two-bodyᠨwith an off-resonant value ofcoefficient K2 苷 N兾N具n典
about 30 3 10215 cm3 兾s, increasing by a factor of morethan 50 near the resonance. The contribution of the twoprocesses cannot be distinguished by our data. However,
dipolar losses are much better understood than three-bodylosses. The off-resonant value of K2 is expected to beabout 10215 cm3 兾s [9] in the magnetic field range aroundthe Feshbach resonances, suggesting that the three-bodycollisions are the dominant loss mechanism also for the1195 G resonance.
The data analysis following Eqs. (2) and (3) is based on
two major assumptions: the Thomas-Fermi approximationin which the kinetic energy is small compared to the meanfield energy, and the assumption that the atoms maintainthe equilibrium density distribution during the change ofthe scattering length. The Thomas-Fermi approximation
is well justified for all data points with a兾a0 . 1. Fora兾a0 , 1 close to the resonances, the mean-field energyof the condensates is only a few times larger than thelevel spacing in the trap. This leads to an overestimateof the density and thus to an underestimate of K3 forthe data points with smallest scattering length. The ramp
speeds of the magnetic field were chosen low enough toᠨøensure adiabaticity, characterized by the condition a兾avi [3], where vi 苷 2pni are the trapping frequencies.
Only for the data point closest to the 1195 G resonance(in parentheses) this condition is not fulfilled. Indeed,
the scattering length a兾a0 [Fig. 1(b)] and the quantity

FIG. 2. Rate coefficients for inelastic collisions near Feshbach2ᠨresonances. N兾N具n
典 is plotted versus the magnetic field.
The time derivative Nᠨ was calculated from neighboring points
without smoothing the data.

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22 MARCH 1999

2ᠨ
典 [Fig. 2(a)] are independent of the ramp speeds,N兾N具n
supporting the assumption of adiabaticity.
The observed increase and the magnetic field dependence of the three-body collision rate is not accounted forby any theory. Two theoretical treatments suggested thatthe rate coefficient K3 should vary monotonically with thescattering length following some power law. Fedichev
et al. [10] derived the universal relation K3 苷 3.9h̄a4 兾
2m. This prediction was in fairly good agreement withmeasurements in rubidium [11] and sodium [7] in low
magnetic fields, even though it is not clear that the assumptions are valid in these experiments. By considering the
breakup of a dimer by a third atom as the inverse processof recombination, Moerdijk et al. [12] suggested that therecombination rate is proportional to a2 . Although theassumptions of those theories might not be fulfilled near
Feshbach resonances, they raised the hope that loss rates
should not increase in the region of the Feshbach resonance
where the scattering length is small. However, for scattering lengths smaller than a0 a substantial increase of thecoefficient K3 was observed. Thus, these measurements
show the need for a more accurate theoretical treatment of
ultracold three-body collisions.
Another way to characterize the losses is a rapid sweep
across the resonances. We determined the fraction of
atoms which were lost in sweeping through the 853 G
resonance and the 907 G resonance at different ramping
speeds [13]. For this, the optical trap and the magnetic
field were suddenly switched off, either before or after
crossing the resonance, and the number of atoms wasdetermined from absorption images as before.
Figure 3 shows the fraction of lost atoms as a functionof the inverse ramp speed. Using the width of 1 G for
the 907 G resonance, this implies that 70% of all atoms
are lost in one microsecond. Across the 853 G resonance
70% of all atoms are lost at a ramp speed of 1 G兾400 ms.
Assuming a universal behavior near Feshbach resonances,
this implies that the strength of the 853 G resonance is four
hundred times weaker than of the 907 G resonance. Since
the width D of the Feshbach resonance is proportional tothe coupling strength between the two involved molecularstates [2], a width of 0.0025 for the 853 G resonanceis estimated. A theoretical prediction for the widths of
the 907 G and the 853 G resonances are 1 and 0.01 G,
respectively [14].
The loss of 70% of the atoms in only one microsecond
cannot be explained by the usual picture of inelastic collisions. Because of the very small kinetic energy of Boseh̄2 n 2兾3
共N 兲
Einstein-condensed atoms, which is of order 2m[15], the travel distance of an atom in 1 ms is less than
1 nm under our conditions, much smaller than the mean
distance between the atoms, d 艐 n21兾3 艐 100 nm. Lossby two- or three-body collisions should then be limited
to the small fraction of atoms which happen to be very
close to other atoms. Possible explanations for the observed large losses are the divergence of the scatteringVOLUME 82, NUMBER 12

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

22 MARCH 1999

Feshbach resonances indicate molecular and many-body
physics which is not yet accounted for by any theory.
This work was supported by the Office of Naval Research, NSF, Joint Services Electronics Program (ARO),
NASA, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
J. S. would like to acknowledge support from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

FIG. 3. Fraction of lost atoms after crossing the Feshbachresonances at 853 and 907 G for different inverse ramp speedsof the magnetic field.

length which allows for extremely long-range interactions
between atoms, the formation of a molecular condensate,as recently proposed [16], or the impulsive excitation ofsolitons [17] when the region of negative scattering lengthis crossed. All suggested explanations require new concepts in many-body theory.
In conclusion, we have reported on the observation ofa new, F 苷 1, mF 苷 21 Feshbach resonance at 1195 G
in sodium, and we have investigated the enhanced trap
losses accompanying all three resonances observed sofar. The scattering length could be altered in the rangeof 0.2 # a兾a0 # 5. The three-body loss coefficient K3
increased for both larger and smaller scattering length
by up to more than 3 orders of magnitude. Thoselosses show that the density of the sodium samples must
be reduced well below 1014 cm23 for further studies
exploiting the tunability of the scattering length near
Feshbach resonances.
Our sweep experiments revealed that approaching a
Feshbach resonance from the high magnetic field sideis strongly affected by trap loss while crossing theresonance. The new mF 苷 21 resonance at 1195 G iswell suited for studies of Bose-Einstein condensates withzero or negative scattering length, since this region is on
the low field side of the resonance and can be directly
approached without crossing any resonance.
So far, the physics of gaseous Bose-Einstein condensates has been very well described including only binaryinteractions between the atoms [15]. Feshbach resonancesmight open the possibility to study physics beyond thisapproximation which breaks down when the scattering
length diverges, and also for very small scattering lengths
when one has to consider higher order terms in the atomic
interactions. Feshbach resonances may also lead to new
inelastic processes. The observed losses of atoms near

*Present address: Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, NJ
07974.
[1] E. Tiesinga, B. J. Verhaar, and H. T. C. Stoof, Phys. Rev.
A 47, 4114 (1993); E. Tiesinga, A. J. Moerdijk, B. J.
Verhaar, and H. T. C. Stoof, Phys. Rev. A 46, R1167(1992).
[2] A. J. Moerdijk, B. J. Verhaar, and A. Axelsson, Phys. Rev.
A 51, 4852 (1995).
[3] Y. Kagan, E. L. Surkov, and G. V. Shlyapnikov, Phys.
Rev. Lett. 79, 2604 (1997).
[4] S. Inouye, M. R. Andrews, J. Stenger, H.-J. Miesner, D. M.
Stamper-Kurn, and W. Ketterle, Nature (London) 392, 151(1998).
[5] Although F is a good quantum number only in small
magnetic fields, in our case it unambigously defines thestates at high fields together with mF .
[6] P. Courteille, R. S. Freeland, D. J. Heinzen, F. A. van
Abeelen, and B. J. Verhaar, Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 69 (1998);
E. A. Cornell and C. E. Wieman (private communication).
[7] D. M. Stamper-Kurn, M. R. Andrews, A. P. Chikkatur,
S. Inouye, H.-J. Miesner, J. Stenger, and W. Ketterle,
Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 2027 (1998).
[8] C. J. Williams (private communication).
[9] H. M. J. M. Boesten, A. J. Moerdijk, and B. J. Verhaar,Phys. Rev. A 54, R29 (1996).
[10] P. O. Fedichev, M. W. Reynolds, and G. V. Shlyapnikov,
Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 2921 (1996).
[11] E. A. Burt, R. W. Ghrist, C. J. Myatt, M. J. Holland, E. A.
Cornell, and C. E. Wieman, Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 337(1997).
[12] A. J. Moerdijk, H. M. J. M. Boesten, and B. J. Verhaar,Phys. Rev. A 53, 916 (1996).
[13] The maximum ramp speed was 1000 G兾ms. The switchoff time of the magnetic field was much shorter than amillisecond. The time between the crossing of the 853 G(907 G) resonance and the trap switch off was in therange of 1 – 20 ms (100 – 400 ms). The atom density had
already dropped by a factor of at least ten for the 907 G
resonance and more than 100 for the 853 G resonancebefore crossing the resonance again during the switch off.
Thus additional losses of atoms during the switch-off ofthe magnetic field can be neglected.
[14] F. A. v. Abeelen and B. J. Verhaar (private communication).
[15] A. S. Parkins and D. F. Walls, Phys. Rep. 303, 1 (1998);
F. Dalfovo, S. Giorgini, L. P. Pitaevskii, and S. Stringari,Rev. Mod. Phys. (to be published).
[16] E. Timmermans, P. Tommasini, R. Côté, M. Hussein, and
A. Kerman, Phys. Rev. Lett. (to be published); cond-mat/
9805323.
[17] W. Reinhardt (private communication).

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Appendix C

Bragg Spectroscopy of a
Bose-Einstein condensate
This appendix includes the following paper [17]: J. Stenger, S. Inouye, A.P. Chikkatur, D.M.
Stamper-Kurn, D.E. Pritchard, and W. Ketterle, “Bragg Spectroscopy of a Bose-Einsteincondensate,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 4569 (1999).

95

P HYSICAL R EVIEWLETTERSVOLUME 82

7 JUNE 1999

NUMBER 23

Bragg Spectroscopy of a Bose-Einstein Condensate
J. Stenger, S. Inouye, A. P. Chikkatur, D. M. Stamper-Kurn, D. E. Pritchard, and W. Ketterle
Department of Physics and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139(Received 11 January 1999)
Properties of a Bose-Einstein condensate were studied by stimulated, two-photon Bragg scattering.
The high momentum and energy resolution of this method allowed a spectroscopic measurement of
the mean-field energy and of the intrinsic momentum uncertainty of the condensate. The coherence
length of the condensate was shown to be equal to its size. Bragg spectroscopy can be used
to determine the dynamic structure factor over a wide range of energy and momentum transfers.
[S0031-9007(99)09356-4]
PACS numbers: 03.75.Fi, 32.80.Pj

The first evidence for Bose-Einstein condensation(BEC) in dilute gases was obtained by a sudden narrowingof the velocity distribution as observed for ballistically
expanding clouds of atoms [1]. Indeed, most textbooks
describe Bose-Einstein condensation as occurring in momentum space [2]. However, the dominant contribution
to the observed momentum distribution of the expanding
condensate was the released interaction energy (mean-fieldenergy). In this paper, we present a direct measurement of
the true momentum distribution of a trapped Bose-Einsteincondensate, which was significantly narrower than thatobserved by time of flight. Furthermore, since the size ofa trapped condensate with repulsive interactions is larger
than the trap ground state, the momentum distribution was
also narrower than that of the trap ground state. Indeed,
we show that the momentum distribution of a trapped
condensate is Heisenberg-uncertainty limited by its finite
size, i.e., that the coherence length of the condensate isequal to its physical size.
Subrecoil momentum resolution has been previously
achieved by resolving the Doppler width of a Raman
transition between different hyperfine states [3] or of a
two-photon transition to a metastable excited state [4].
Here we use Bragg scattering where two momentum statesof the same ground state are connected by a stimulated
two-photon process. This process can be used to probedensity fluctuations of the system and thus to measure
0031-9007兾99兾82(23)兾4569(5)$15.00

directly the dynamic structure factor S共q, n兲, which is
the Fourier transform of the density-density correlation
function and is central to the theoretical descriptionof many-body systems [5,6]. In contrast to measuringS共q, n兲 with inelastic neutron scattering as in superfluid
helium [7], or using inelastic light scattering [8,9], Bragg
scattering as used here is a stimulated process which
greatly enhances resolution and sensitivity.
Bragg scattering of atoms from a light grating was
first demonstrated in 1988 [10] and has been used tomanipulate atomic samples in atom interferometers [11],in de Broglie wave frequency shifters [12], and also
to couple out or manipulate a Bose-Einstein condensate[13]. Small angle Bragg scattering, called recoil-induced
resonances, has been used for thermometry of laser-cooled
atoms [14]. In this work we establish Bragg scattering
as a spectroscopic technique to probe properties of thecondensate. We refer to it as Bragg spectroscopy [15] inanalogy to Raman spectroscopy which involves different
internal states.
The absorption of N photons from one laser beam andstimulated emission into a second laser beam constitutes
an Nth order Bragg scattering process. The momentum
transfer q and energy transfer hn are given by jqj 苷
2N h̄k sin共q 兾2兲 and n 苷 NDn, where q is the angle
between the two laser beams with wave vector k andfrequency difference Dn.
© 1999 The American Physical Society

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PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

For noninteracting atoms with initial momentum h̄ki ,the resonance is given by the Bragg condition hn 苷q2 兾2m 1 h̄ki ? q兾m, which simply reflects energy andmomentum conservation for a free particle. The second
term is the Doppler shift of the resonance and allows
the use of Bragg resonances in a velocity-selective way[13,14].
For a weakly interacting homogeneous condensate at
density n, the dispersion relation has the Bogoliubov
form [2]p(1)n 苷 n02 1 2n0 nU兾h ,where nU 苷 n4p h̄2 a兾m is the chemical potential, witha and m denoting the scattering length and the mass,
respectively, and hn0 苷 q2 兾2m. For energies hn ¿ nU,
as probed in this paper, the spectrum is particlelike:n 艐 n0 1 nU兾h .

(2)

The mean-field shift nU兾h reflects the exchange term in
the interatomic interactions: a particle with momentum q
experiences twice the mean-field energy as a particle inthe condensate [2]. We use this property to determine thecondensate mean-field energy spectroscopically. This issimilar to the mean-field shift due to interactions with anelectronically excited state which was used to identify BEC
in atomic hydrogen [4].
The inhomogeneity of a trapped condensate adds two
features which broaden the resonance. First, the finite
size of the condensate implies a distribution of momenta
which broadens the Bragg resonance due to the Doppler
sensitivity of the excitation. In the Thomas-Fermi approximation, the condensate wave function c共x, y, z兲 ina harmonic trapping potential is 关c共x, y, z兲兴2 苷 n0 关1 2
共x兾x0 兲2 2 共 y兾y0 兲2 2 共z兾z0 兲2 兴, where n0 denotes the peakdensity. p
The radii of the condensate (x0 , y0 , z0 ) are given
by x0 苷 2n0 U兾m共2pnx 兲2 (similar for y0 , z0 ), where ni
are the trapping frequencies. The distribution of momenta
px along the x axis is given by the square of the Fouriertransform of the wave function [16]jc共px 兲j2 ⬃ 关J2 共px x0 兾h̄兲兾共px x0 兾h̄兲2 兴2(3)

where J2 denotes the Bessel function of order 2.
This distribution is similar
to a Gaussian and has anp
rms width of Dpx 苷 21兾8 h̄兾x0 . Thus, the correspondingp Doppler broadening of the Bragg resonance
Dnp 苷 21兾8 q兾2pmx0 is inversely proportional to thecondensate size x0 and does not depend explicitly on thenumber of atoms.
Second, the Bragg resonance is also broadened andshifted by the inhomogeneous density distribution of
the trapped condensate. The parabolic condensate wave
function givesthe (normalized) density distributionp
共15n兾4n0 兲 1 2 n兾n0 . The simplest model for the
spectroscopic line shape In 共n兲 due to the inhomogenous
density assumes that a volume element with density n
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7 JUNE 1999

leads to a line shift nU兾h [Eq. (2)]:s
15h共n 2 n0 兲
h共n 2 n0 兲
In 共n兲 苷
12
.
4n0 U
n0 U

(4)

The effect of the inhomogeneous condensate density isthus to shift the line from the free-particle resonancen0 by 4n0 U兾7h (first moment), andp to broaden theresonance to an rms width of Dnn 苷 8兾147 n0 U兾h. In
contrast to the finite-size Doppler broadening, the meanfield broadening depends only on the maximum density,
but not explicitly on the size.
In our experiments, both the finite-size and mean-fieldbroadening mechanisms had to be considered. Whilethe exact calculation of the line shape requires detailed
knowledge of the excitation wave functions, the total line
shift and rms width can be calculated using sum rules andFermi’s Golden Rule. Thus, it can rigorously be shown
while the rms
that the total line shift remains 4n0 U兾7h, pwidth of the resonance becomes Dn 苷 Dnp2 1 Dnn2
which is the quadrature sum of the Doppler and meanfield widths [17].
We produced magnetically trapped, cigar-shaped BoseEinstein condensates as in previous work [18]. In orderto study the resonance as a function of density andsize, we prepared condensates using two different sets oftrapping frequencies and varied the number of atoms by
removing a variable fraction using the rf output coupler[19]. The density of the condensate was determined fromthe expansion of the cloud in time of flight and thesize from the atom number and the trapping frequencies[18]. Bragg scattering was performed by using two
counterpropagating beams aligned perpendicularly to theweak axis of the trap. Spectra were taken by pulsing
on the light shortly before switching off the trap anddetermining the number of scattered atoms as a functionof the frequency difference between the two Bragg
beams. Since the kinetic energy of the scattered atoms
was much larger than the mean-field energy, they were
well separated from the unscattered cloud after a typicalballistic expansion time of 20 ms. Center frequencies andwidths were determined from Gaussian fits to the spectra.
The duration, intensity, and detuning of the Bragg
pulses were chosen carefully. The instrumental resolution
is limited by the pulse duration dtpulse due to its Fourier
spectrum, in our case requiring dtpulse . 250 ms for
sub-kHz resolution. The maximum pulse duration of
500 ms was chosen to be less than one quarter of thetrap period by which time the initially scattered atoms
would come to rest and thus would be indistinguishable
from the unscattered atoms in time of flight. The lightintensity was adjusted to set the peak excitation efficiency
to about 20%. Sufficient detuning was necessary to
avoid heating of the sample. The ratio of the twophoton rate vR2 兾4D to the spontaneous scattering rate
vR2 G兾2D2 is G兾2D, where vR denotes the single beam

VOLUME 82, NUMBER 23

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

Rabi frequency, D the detuning, and G the naturallinewidth. Spontaneous scattering was negligible for the
chosen detuning of 1.77 GHz below the 3S1兾2 F 苷 1 !
3P3兾2 F 苷 2 transition.
The relative detuning of the two Bragg beams was realized in two ways. In one scheme, a beam was split andsent through two independent acousto-optical modulators
driven with the appropriate difference frequency, and thenoverlapped in a counterpropagating configuration. Alternatively, a single beam was modulated with two frequencies separated by the relative detuning and backreflected.
Both methods were insensitive to frequency drifts of thelaser since the Bragg process only depends on the relative
frequency of the two beams, which was controlled by rf
synthesizers. The second method simultaneously scatteredatoms in the 1x and 2x directions and was thus helpful
to identify center-of-mass motion of the cloud. We estimate that residual vibrational noise broadened the line byless than 1 kHz. This resolution corresponds to a velocity
resolution of 0.3 mm兾s or 1% of the single-photon recoil.
At a radial trapping frequency of 200 Hz, this required thatthe trapped condensate vibrate with an amplitude less than
0.2 mm.
Figure 1 shows typical spectra, taken both for a trapped
condensate and after 3 ms time of flight when the meanfield energy was fully converted into kinetic energy. The
rms width of the resonance for the ballistically expanding
cloud is 20 kHz, which is much narrower than the 65 kHz
wide distribution of a thermal cloud at 1 mK, a typicalvalue for the BEC transition temperature under our conditions. We could not measure the thermal distribution
with the same pulse duration as for the condensate since
the fraction of scattered atoms was too small due to thebroad resonance. The spectra for the thermal cloud andthe expanding condensate correspond to the spatial distributions observed by absorption imaging after sufficiently
long time of flight. With this technique, the BEC tran-

FIG. 1. Bragg resonances for a trapped condensate (circles)
and after 3 ms time of flight (triangles). For comparison, themomentum distributions of the ground state of the trapping
potential (dotted curve) and of a 1 mK cold, thermal cloud(dashed curve) are indicated. The heights of the curves for thetrapped condensate and the ground state momentum distribution
are scaled down as indicated in the figure.

7 JUNE 1999

sition is indicated by a sudden narrowing of the time-offlight distribution by a factor of 3. Using Bragg spectroscopy, the signature of BEC is much more dramatic—
the condensate resonance is more than 30 times narrower
than of the thermal cloud, and indeed narrower than thatof the ground state of the trap.
Figure 2 traces the broadening of the Bragg resonancefrom about 2 to 20 kHz (rms width) after releasing
a condensate from the trap as the mean-field interactionenergy is converted into kinetic energy. After 3 ms, themomentum distribution of the cloud reached its asymptotic velocity width and expanded ballistically thereafter.
Castin and Dum [20] considered the expansion of acigar-shaped condensate in the Thomas-Fermi approximation and found that the velocity distribution should beparabolic with apmaximum velocity yx which grows as
yx 苷 y` 2pnx t兾 1 1 共2pnx t兲2 , where y` 苷 2pnx x0 .
To compare with our data, we combined in quadrature theDoppler width predicted by this velocity distribution, themean-field width, and the finite-size width (assuming
thep size of the condensate grows as x共t兲 苷
x0 1 1 共2pnx t兲2 [20]). As shown in Fig. 2, theagreement with our measurement is excellent.
The narrow resonance of the trapped condensate (Fig. 1)
was studied as a function of the condensate density andsize. Figure 3a demonstrates the linear dependence of thefrequency shift on the density. The slope of the linear
fit corresponds to 共0.54 6 0.07兲n0 U兾h, in agreement withthe prediction of 4n0 U兾7h. In Fig. 3b, the expected
widths due to the mean-field energy and finite size areshown for the two different trapping frequencies studied.
The data agree well with the solid lines, which represent thequadrature sum of the two contributions. To demonstrate
the finite-size effect the same data are shown in Fig. 3cafter subtracting the mean-field broadening and the finite
pulse-length broadening (0.5 kHz). The linewidths are
consistent with the expected 1兾x0 dependence. Even
without these corrections the measured linewidths arewithin 20% of the value expected due to the Heisenberguncertainty limited momentum distribution (Fig. 3b).

FIG. 2. Mean-field acceleration of a condensate released fromthe trap. Shown is the increase of the rms width of the Bragg
resonance during the expansion. The solid line is the theoreticalprediction [20] using the trap frequency nx 苷 195 Hz. The
dashed line represents the contributions of mean-field energy
and finite size to the total width.

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PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

FIG. 3. Bragg spectroscopy of a trapped condensate. Line
shifts (a) and rms widths (b) are shown for various densities
and sizes of the condensate using two different radial trapping
frequencies, nx 苷 共195 6 20兲 Hz (circles), and nx 苷 共95 6
20兲 Hz (triangles). The lines in (b) show the contributionsof the mean-field energy (dashed) and due to the finite size
(dotted, for both trapping frequencies) and their quadrature sum(solid lines). (c) displays the width after subtraction of thecontribution of the mean field and the finite pulse duration andcompares it with the prediction for the momentum uncertainty
due to the finite size. The error bars are 1s errors of theGaussian fits to the data.

The momentum spread of the condensate is limited byits coherence length xc which, in the case of long-rangeorder, should be equal to the size x0 of the condensate.
Our results show that xc 艐 x0 in the radial direction of
the trap, thus providing a quantitative measure of thelong-range coherence observed earlier by interfering two
condensates [21]. In particular, our measurements indicate that the condensate does not have phase fluctuations on this length scale, i.e., that it does not consistof smaller quasicondensates with random relative phases.
It would be interesting to measure the coherence length
during the formation of the condensate, e.g., after suddenly quenching the system below the BEC transition
4572

7 JUNE 1999

temperature [22], and to observe the disappearance ofphase fluctuations.
In this work we have energy resolved the response of
the condensate to a momentum transfer of two photon
recoils, constituting a measurement of the dynamic structure factor S共q, n兲 for this value of q. Different momentum transfers are possible by changing the angle
between the Bragg beams and/or the order N of the Bragg
transition, thus enabling measurements of S共q, n兲 overa wide range of parameters. At low momentum transfer, the line shape is dominated by the mean-field energy and by phononlike collective excitations, whereas at
high momentum transfers, the linewidth mainly reflects
the momentum distribution of individual atoms. This isanalogous to neutron scattering in liquid helium, where
slow neutrons were used to observe the phonon and roton part of the dispersion curve, and fast neutrons wereused to determine the zero-momentum peak of the condensate [7]. While we have observed higher-order Bragg
scattering up to third order in the trapped condensate using higher laser intensities, its spectroscopic use was precluded by severe Rayleigh scattering, and would requirelarger detuning from the atomic resonance.
The use of inelastic light scattering to determine thestructure factor of a Bose-Einstein condensate was discussed in several theoretical papers [8,9]. It would require the analysis of scattered light with kHz resolution
and suffers from a strong background of coherently scattered light [9]. Bragg spectroscopy has distinct advantages because it is a stimulated, background-free process
in which the momentum transfer and energy are predetermined by the laser beams rather than postdetermined frommeasurements of the momentum and energy of the scattered particle.
In conclusion, we have established Bragg spectroscopy
as a new tool to measure properties of a condensate
with spectroscopic precision. We have demonstrated
its capability to perform high-resolution velocimetry by
resolving the narrow momentum distribution of a trapped
condensate and by observing the acceleration phase inballistic expansion. Since the momentum transfer canbe adjusted over a wide range, Bragg spectroscopy canbe used to probe such diverse properties as collective
excitations, mean-field energies, coherence properties,
vortices, and persistent currents.
This work was supported by the Office of Naval Research, NSF, Joint Services Electronics Program (ARO),
NASA, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
A. P. C. would like to acknowledge support from NSF,
D. M. S. -K. from the JSEP, and J. S. from the Alexandervon Humboldt Foundation.

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VOLUME 82, NUMBER 23

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7 JUNE 1999

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[14] J.-Y. Courtois, G. Grynberg, B. Lounis, and P. Verkerk,
Phys. Rev. Lett. 72, 3017 (1994).
[15] P. R. Berman and B. Bian, Phys. Rev. A 55, 4382 (1997).
[16] G. Baym and C. J. Pethick, Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 6 (1996).
[17] D. M. Stamper-Kurn (to be published).
[18] M.-O. Mewes et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 416 (1996).
[19] M.-O. Mewes et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 582 (1997).
[20] Y. Castin and R. Dum, Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 5315 (1996).
[21] M. R. Andrews et al., Science 275, 637 (1997).
[22] H.-J. Miesner et al., Science 279, 1005 (1998); D. M.
Stamper-Kurn et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 2194 (1998).

4573

Appendix D

Superradiant Rayleigh Scatteringfrom a Bose-Einstein Condensate
This appendix includes the following paper [18]: S. Inouye, A.P. Chikkatur, D.M. StamperKurn, J. Stenger, D.E. Pritchard, W. Ketterle, “Superradiant Rayleigh Scattering from a
Bose-Einstein Condensate,” Science 285, 571 (1999).

101

REPORTS
opposed to 19,000 to 23,000 years in theinsolation record), indicating a more complicated relation (15, 16).
Our results demonstrate that embedded
within the long-term climatic changes weremuch finer scale variations at sub-Milankovitch time scales (Fig. 2). We therefore propose that, in addition to the climatic changes
associated with the linear response to theorbital forcing, a nonlinear response at subMilankovitch frequencies may have been responsible for the initiation of the NHG. Perhaps an incremental increase in amplitudeand frequency of these sub-Milankovitch oscillations across the transition resulted in ashortening of the length of time between
subsequent cold stages. This would have reduced the time for climatic “recovery” between each cycle, thereby providing a mechanism for the buildup of large terrestrial ice

sheets. Thus, a combination of factors at different time scales within a nonlinear framework may be responsible for the changes
leading to the NHG.
References and Notes
1. L. J. Lourens and F. J. Hilgen, Quat. Int. 40, 43 (1997).
2. M. E. Raymo, D. Hodell, E. Jansen, Paleoceanography
7, 645 (1992).
3. G. H. Haug and R. Tiedemann, Nature 393, 673(1998).
4. X. S. Li et al., Geophys. Res. Lett. 25, 915 (1998).
5. W. F. Ruddimann and J. E. Kutzbach, J. Geophys. Res.
94, 18409 (1989).
6. M. E. Raymo, W. F. Ruddimann, P. N. Froelich, Geology 16, 649 (1988).
7. M. A. Maslin, X. S. Li, M. F. Loutre, A. Berger, Quat. Sci.
Rev. 17, 411 (1998).
8. K. J. Willis, A. Kleczkowski, S. J. Crowhurst, Nature
397, 685 (1999).
9. C. Ravasz, Annu. Rep. Hung. State Geol. Inst. 1974
(1974), p. 221.
10. M. Hajós, Annu. Rep. Hung. State Geol. Inst. 1988
(1989), p. 5.

Superradiant Rayleigh
Scattering from a Bose-Einstein
Condensate
S. Inouye,* A. P. Chikkatur, D. M. Stamper-Kurn, J. Stenger,
D. E. Pritchard, W. Ketterle
Rayleigh scattering off a Bose-Einstein condensate was studied. Exposing anelongated condensate to a single off-resonant laser beam resulted in theobservation of highly directional scattering of light and atoms. This collective
light scattering is caused by the coherent center-of-mass motion of the atoms
in the condensate. A directional beam of recoiling atoms was built up by matterwave ampliﬁcation.
Rayleigh scattering, the scattering of a photon off an atom, is the most elementary process involving atoms and light. It is responsible for the index of refraction of gases, theblue sky, and resonance fluorescence. This
process can be divided into absorption of aphoton and subsequent spontaneous emission. Photon scattering imparts a recoil momentum to the atom. Because of the random
nature of spontaneous emission, the directionof the recoil is random, leading to momentum
diffusion and heating of the atomic motion.
With the realization of Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) (1), it is now possible tostudy the interactions of coherent light withan ensemble of atoms in a single quantum
state. The high degree of spatial and temporal
coherence of a condensate was confirmed inseveral experiments (2, 3). This raises theimportant question of whether the coherent
Department of Physics and Research Laboratory ofElectronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
*To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: sinouye@mit.edu

external motion of the atoms can alter theinteractions between atoms and light. Here
we show that the long coherence time of a
Bose-Einstein condensate introduces strong
correlations between successive Rayleighscattering events. The scattering of photons
leaves an imprint in the condensate in theform of long-lived excitations that provide a
positive feedback and lead to directional Rayleigh scattering.
The gain mechanism for Rayleigh scattering from a condensate can be derived semiclassically. When a condensate of N0 atoms is
exposed to a laser beam with wave vector k0
and scatters a photon with wave vector ki, an
atom [or quasi-particle, also called momentum side mode in (4)] with recoil momentumបKj ⫽ ប(k0 ⫺ ki), where ប is Planck’s constant divided by 2␲, is generated. Becauselight propagates at a velocity about 10 ordersof magnitude greater than the atomic recoil
velocity (3 cm/s for sodium), the recoilingatoms remain within the volume of the condensate long after the photons have left andaffect subsequent scattering events. They interfere with the condensate at rest to form a

11. N. J. Shackleton, M. A. Hall, D. Pate, in Proceedings of
the Ocean Drilling Program, Scientiﬁc Results, N. G.
Pisias, T. R. Janecek, A. Palmer-Julson, T. H. van Andel,
Eds. (Ocean Drilling Program, College Station, TX,
1995), vol. 138, pp. 337–355.
12. M. A. Maslin, G. H. Haug, M. Sarnthein, R. Tiedemann,Geol. Rundsch. 85, 452 (1996).
13. G. Kukla, Boreas 1, 63 (1972).
14. J. Laskar, F. Joutel, F. Boudin, Astron. Astrophys. 270,522 (1993).
15. T. K. Hagelberg, G. Bond, P. deMenocal, Paleoceanography 9, 545 (1994).
16. A. Berger and M. F. Loutre, Science 278, 1476 (1997).
17. D. B. Percival and A. T. Walden, Spectral Analysis for
Physical Applications (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1993).
18. This work was supported by a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (K.J.W.), a King’s College
Senior Research Fellowship (A.K.), Biotechnology andBiological Sciences Research Council (K.M.B. and
C.A.G.), a Royal Society Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship (C.A.G.), and St. Hugh’s College
Oxford Higher Studies Fund (payment for color of
Fig. 1), which we gratefully acknowledge.
4 January 1999; accepted 7 June 1999

moving matter wave grating of wave vector
Kj, which diffracts the laser beam into thephase-matching direction ki (⫽ k0 ⫺ Kj).
This diffraction is a self-amplifying process
because every diffracted photon creates another recoiling atom that increases the amplitude of the matter wave grating.
When Nj recoiling atoms with momentum
បKj interfere with N0 condensate atoms at
rest, the density modulation comprises
Nmod ⫽ 2 公N0 Nj atoms. The light scatteredby these atoms interferes constructively in thephase-matching direction with a total power
P ofP ⫽ ប␻f j R

N 2mod4(1)

sin2 ␪ jfj ⫽⍀8␲/3 j(2)Here, R is the rate for single-atom Rayleighscattering, which is proportional to the laser
intensity, and ␻ is the frequency of the radiation. The angular term in Eq. 2 reflects the
dipolar emission pattern with ␪j being theangle between the polarization of the incident
light and the direction of emission. Becauseof the finite size of the sample, the phasematching condition is fulfilled over the solid
angle ⍀j ⬃ ␭2/A, where A is the cross-sectional area of the condensate perpendicular tothe direction of the light emission and ␭ is the
optical wavelength. More rigorously, ⍀j isgiven by the usual phase-matching integral
for superradiance in extended samples (5):
⍀j ⫽

冕 冏冕
d⍀共k兲

冏

␳˜ 共r兲e i共k i ⫺ k兲 䡠 r dr 2(3)where ⱍkⱍ ⫽ ⱍkiⱍ and ␳˜ (r) is the normalized
spatial density distribution in the condensate(兰 ␳˜ (r) dr ⫽ 1).
Because each scattered photon creates awww.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 285 23 JULY 1999

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REPORTS
recoiling atom, we obtain the growth rate forNj from P/ប␻:Ṅ j ⫽ G j N j(4)

This equation predicts exponential growth of
Nj with the small-signal gain Gj ⫽ RN0 fj ⬃ R
sin2 ␪j Dj, where Dj ⬃ ␳0␭2lj is the resonant
optical density for a condensate with an
atomic density ␳0 and a length lj along theaxis of emission. Therefore, for an anisotropic Bose condensate, the gain is largest when
the light is emitted along its longest axis [the“end-fire mode” (6)]. Equation 4 is valid in
the absence of decoherence and predicts thebuildup of highly anisotropic Rayleigh scattering from a nonspherical sample of atoms.
For the experimental study of directional
Rayleigh scattering, elongated Bose-Einsteincondensates were prepared in a magnetic trap(7). The trapped condensates were about 20
␮m in diameter d and 200 ␮m in length l andcontained several million sodium atoms in
the F ⫽ 1 hyperfine ground state. The condensate was exposed to a single off-resonant
laser pulse that was red-detuned by 1.7 GHzfrom the 3S1/2, F ⫽ 1 3 3P3/2, F ⫽ 0,1,2transition. The beam had a diameter of a few
millimeters, propagated at an angle of 45° tothe vertical axis, and intersected the elongated condensate perpendicular to its long axis
(Fig. 1A). Typical laser intensities were between 1 and 100 mW/cm2, corresponding toRayleigh scattering rates of 4.5 ⫻ 101 to

4.5 ⫻ 10 s and the pulse duration between
10 and 800 ␮s. To probe the momentum
distribution of scattered atoms, we suddenly
turned off the magnetic trap immediately after the light pulse and imaged the ballistically
expanding cloud after 20- to 50-ms time offlight using resonant probe light propagating
vertically onto a charge-coupled device(CCD) camera.
The momentum distributions of atoms after light scattering (Fig. 1B, to G) showed amarked dependence on the polarization of theincident laser beam. For polarization parallelto the long axis of the elongated condensate(␪j ⫽ 0), light emission into the end-firemode was suppressed, and the distribution of
atoms followed the dipolar pattern of normal
Rayleigh scattering. For perpendicular polarization (␪j ⫽ ␲/2), photons were predominantly emitted along the long axis of thecondensate, and the recoiling atoms appeared
as highly directional beams propagating at anangle of 45° with respect to this axis (8).
A fully quantum-mechanical treatment reproduces the semiclassical result (Eq. 4) except that Nj is replaced by Nj ⫹ 1:
3

⫺1

Ṅ j ⫽ RN 0

sin2 ␪ j⍀ 共N ⫹ 1兲
8␲/3 j j(5)Equation 5 now describes both normal
Rayleigh scattering at a constant total rate⌺Ṅj ⫽ RN0 when Nj ⬍⬍ 1 and exponential
gain of the j th recoil mode once Nj becomes

Absorption

Fig. 1. Observation of su100%
Lightperradiant Rayleigh scatA
tering. (A) An elongatedcondensate is illuminatedwith a single off-resonantLaser
laser beam. Collective scatbeam
tering leads to photons
scattered predominantly
along the axial direction
Atoms
and atoms at 45°. (B to G)
0%
Absorption images after
20-ms time of ﬂight show
BCD
the atomic momentum
distribution after their exposure to a laser pulse ofvariable duration. Whenthe polarization was parallel to the long axis, superradiance was suppressed,
and normal Rayleigh scattering was observed (B toD). For perpendicular polarization, directional suEFG
perradiant scattering of atoms was observed (E to G)
and evolved to repeatedscattering for longer laser
pulses (F and G). The pulse
durations were 25 (B), 100(C and D), 35 (E), 75 (F),and 100 (G) ␮s. The ﬁeldof view of each image is
2.8 mm by 3.3 mm. The
scattering angle appears larger than 45° because of the angle of observation. All images use the samecolor scale except for (D), which enhances the small signal of Rayleigh scattered atoms in (C).

572

nonnegligible. Initially, the angular distribution of the scattered light follows the singleatom spontaneous (dipolar) emission pattern
but can become highly anisotropic whenstimulation by the atomic field becomes important (9, 10).
This phenomenon is analogous to the superradiance discussed by Dicke (6). He
showed that the optical emission of incoherently excited atoms can be highly directional.
The key feature of superradiance (or superfluorescence) (11) is that spontaneous emission is not a single-atom process but a collective process of all atoms, leaving the atoms
in a coherent superposition of ground andexcited states (12). The condensate at rest
“pumped” by the off-resonant laser corresponds to the electronically excited state in
the Dicke case. It can decay by a spontaneous
Raman process to a state with photon recoil(corresponding to the ground state). The rateof superradiant emission in Dicke’s treatment
is proportional to the square of an oscillating
macroscopic dipole moment. In the present
case, the radiated intensity is proportional to
the square of the contrast of the matter wave
interference pattern between the condensate
and the recoiling atoms.
A characteristic feature of superradianceis an accelerated decay of the initial state. In
our experiment, normal exponential decay
and the superradiant decay could be directlycompared by tracing the number of atoms
remaining in the condensate at rest after exposure to light of different polarizations. For
parallel polarization, we observed a simple
exponential decay with the expected Rayleigh scattering rate (Fig. 2). For perpendicular polarization, the end-fire mode was active, and the condensate decayed nonexponentially with a strongly accelerated superradiant rate.
To verify the directional emission of light,
we observed the scattered light by directing it

Fig. 2. The decay of atoms in the condensate at
rest showed the normal exponential decay forparallel polarization (䡬) and faster superradiant decay for perpendicular polarization (䢇).
The laser intensities (13 mW/cm2) and oscillator strengths were equal in both cases.

23 JULY 1999 VOL 285 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org

REPORTS
onto a CCD camera (Fig. 3A). The camera
was positioned out of focus of the imaging
system, so that the images represent the angular distribution of photons emitted aroundthe axial direction. The images consisted ofbright spots with angular widths equal to thediffraction limit for a source with a diameterof ⬃14 ␮m. Typical images showed morethan one such spot, and their pattern changed
randomly under the same experimental conditions. The observation of a few spots is
consistent with a Fresnel number F ⫽ ␲d 2/

4l␭ slightly larger than 1, implying that thegeometric angle d/l is larger than the diffraction angle ␭/d. F ⬎ 1 leads to multimodesuperradiance (11) because there is now morethan one end-fire mode.
By replacing the camera with a photomultiplier, a time-resolved measurement of thescattered light intensity was obtained (Fig.
3B). Simple Rayleigh scattering would give a
constant signal during the square-shaped laser pulse. Instead, we observed a fast rise anda subsequent decay consistent with a stimulated process.
Measurements at variable laser intensities
showed a threshold for the onset of superradiance and a shorter rise time for higher laser
intensities. This behavior can be accounted
for by adding a loss term Lj in Eq. 4:
Ṅ j ⫽ 共G j ⫺ L j 兲 N j(6)

We determined the exponential rate (Gj ⫺ Lj)
by fitting the initial rise in the light intensity.
At early times, the depletion of the condensate is negligible and Gj and Lj are constants.
The inverse rise time Ṅ/N versus the Rayleighscattering rate R, which was measured by“switching off ” the superradiance by changing to parallel polarization, is shown in Fig.
3C. The slope gives Gj /R, and the offset
determines the loss Lj. The agreement between the calculated value for Gj /R ⬃ 890(with ⍀j ⬃ 1.9 ⫻ 10⫺4 and N0 ⫽ 4.7 ⫻ 106)
and the result of the simple linear fit (790) is
better than the uncertainty in the Rayleighscattering rate (40%). The offset in Fig. 3C
determines the threshold for superradianceand yields 1/Lj ⫽ 35 ␮s.
The rate of decoherence Lj for the superradiance indicates the decay of the matterwave interference. This decoherence has
been studied separately by stimulated Rayleigh scattering (or Bragg spectroscopy) (3),where the linewidth of the Bragg resonanceFig. 3. Observation of directional emission oflight. (A) The angular pattern of the emitted
light along the axial direction showed a few
bright spots with an angular width ␪D (1/e2diameter) of 107 ⫾ 20 mrad, corresponding to
the diffraction-limited angle of an object of⬃14 ␮m in diameter. The images were integrated over the entire duration of the lightpulse. (B) The temporal evolution of the lightintensity showed a strong initial increase characteristic of a stimulated process. For higher
laser power, the pulse was shorter and more
intense. The laser intensities were 3.8 (solidline), 2.4 (dashed line), and 1.4 (dotted line)
mW/cm2, and the duration was 550 ␮s. The
inset shows a double peak in the temporalsignal when the laser intensity was about 15
mW/cm2, which was above the threshold forsequential superradiant scattering. The photomultiplier recorded the light over an angle of
200 mrad around the axial direction. (C) The
dependence of the inverse initial rise time on
the Rayleigh scattering rate shows a thresholdfor the stimulated process. The solid curve is astraight-line ﬁt.

Fig. 4. Observation of “matter wave ampliﬁcation.” Shown is the number of atoms in one of
the superradiant peaks versus duration of thelaser pulse. An intense atomic pulse wasformed by ampliﬁcation of spontaneous scattering. The initial number of atoms in the condensate at rest was 2 ⫻ 107, and the laser
intensities were about 25 (䢇) and 45 (䡬)mW/cm2. The solid lines are guides to the eye.

resulted from Doppler and mean-field broadening. The observed full width at half-maximum of about 5 kHz yields a decoherencetime of 32 ␮s, in good agreement with thevalue shown above (13, 14).
For higher laser powers, a distinct change
in both the momentum pattern of the atoms(Fig. 1, F and G) and the photomultiplier
traces (Fig. 3B) was observed. The atomic
pattern showed additional momentum peaks
that can be explained as a sequential scattering process in which atoms in the initialmomentum peak undergo further superradiant scattering (15). These processes are timedelayed with respect to the primary process
and showed up as a second peak in the timeresolved photomultiplier traces (Fig. 3B).
This “cascade” of superradiant scattering processes does not exist in the two-level superradiance systems studied so far.
Superradiance is based on the coherence ofthe emitting system, but it does not require
quantum degeneracy. The condition for superradiance is that the gain exceed the losses orthat the superradiant decay time be shorter thanany decoherence time (11). Above the BEC
transition temperature Tc, thermal Doppler
broadening results in a 30 times shorter decoherence time than for a condensate. Furthermore, the larger size of the thermal cloud reduces the solid angle ⍀j and therefore the gain
by a factor of 10. Therefore, the threshold forsuperradiance in a thermal cloud is several orders of magnitude higher than for a condensate.
No signs of superradiant scattering were observed above Tc; rather, the sudden appearanceof superradiant emission was a sensitive indicator for reaching the phase transition.
The rise of the number of atoms in the
superradiant peak (Fig. 4) can be regarded as
single-pass matter wave amplification. Recently, Law and Bigelow considered such an
amplifier formed by passing input atoms
through a condensate (16). The condensate
atoms are transferred into the input atomicmode by bosonic stimulation, assisted byspontaneously scattered photons from a coupling laser that ensures momentum conservation and irreversibility of the gain process.
Our experiment realized this geometry except
for the fact that the input atoms were createdspontaneously. The observed peak of recoiling atoms can thus be regarded as amplified
vacuum fluctuations.
An atom cloud with a small excited state
admixture can act as a gain medium for bothmatter waves and light, and we have observed
the matter wave amplification. If the emitted
light is allowed to build up in a cavity, an
optical laser is realized (17). Similarly, thebuildup of the matter wave field in an atom
cavity can lead to an atom laser (18).
In conclusion, we have studied the interaction between coherent light and coherent
atoms. The long coherence time of a Bose-

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Einstein condensate gave rise to superradiance based on coherent external motion. The
extremely low threshold in light intensity (⬃1 mW/cm2 for our conditions) should betaken into account in BEC experiments thatuse optical probing and manipulation with
off-resonant light. The simultaneous superradiant emission of light and atoms emphasizes
the symmetry between atom lasers and optical lasers.
References and Notes
1. M. H. Anderson, J. R. Ensher, M. R. Matthews, C. E.
Wieman, E. A. Cornell, Science 269, 198 (1995); K. B.
Davis et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 3969 (1995); C. C.
Bradley, C. A. Sackett, R. G. Hulet, ibid. 78, 985(1997); D. G. Fried et al., ibid. 81, 3811 (1998).
2. M. R. Andrews et al., Science 275, 637 (1997); D. S.
Hall, M. R. Matthews, C. E. Wieman, E. A. Cornell,
Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 1543 (1998); B. P. Anderson and
M. A. Kasevich, Science 282, 1686 (1998).
3. J. Stenger et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 4569 (1999).
4. M. G. Moore and P. Meystre, Phys. Rev. A 59, R1754(1999).
5. N. E. Rehler and J. H. Eberly, ibid. 3, 1735 (1971).
6. R. H. Dicke, in Proceedings of the Third International
Congress on Quantum Electronics, P. Grivet and N.
Bloembergen, Eds. (Columbia Univ. Press, New York,1964), pp. 35–54.
7. M.-O. Mewes et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 416 (1996).
8. One can emphasize the symmetry of the atomic andoptical ﬁelds by describing the process in the moving
frame of the excited atoms that have absorbed one
laser photon. Because the total momentum is zero inthis frame, photons and atoms are emitted into
opposite directions, preferentially along the long axisof the elongated cloud. Transforming back into thelaboratory frame results in preferential emission oflight still along the long axis but of atoms at 45°.
9. H.-J. Miesner et al., Science, 279, 1005 (1998).
10. The probability for reabsorption of scattered light
was less than 3% and could be neglected. Opticalampliﬁcation is accounted for by treating all theatoms as a single quantum mechanical system.
11. N. Skribanowitz, I. P. Herman, J. C. MacGillivray, M. S.
Feld, Phys. Rev. Lett. 30, 309 (1973); R. Bonifacio and
L. A. Lugiato, Phys. Rev. A 11, 1507 (1975); Q. H. F.
Vrehen and H. M. Gibbs, in Topics in Current Physics
27, R. Bonifacio, Ed. (Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1982),
pp. 111–147; M. Gross and S. Haroche, Phys. Rep. 93,
301 (1982).
12. R. H. Dicke, Phys. Rev. 93, 99 (1954).
13. In (3), the recoiling atoms propagated perpendicular
to the long axis of the condensate. The “ﬁnite size”
contribution to the Doppler broadening was therefore twice that of the present geometry.
14. Elastic collisions at a maximum rate of ⬃2 kHz do
not contribute substantially to Lj, although they reduce the number of atoms in the superradiant peakby ⬃50%.
15. Stimulated Raman scattering and four-wave mixing between matter waves [see L. Deng et al., Nature 398,
218 (1999)] may couple the different recoil modes andfurther affect the momentum distribution.
16. C. K. Law and N. P. Bigelow, Phys. Rev. A 58, 4791
(1998).
17. This is called the coherent atomic recoil laser. See R.
Bonifacio and L. De Salvo, Nucl. Instrum. Methods
Phys. Res. A 341, 360 (1994); M. G. Moore and P.
Meystre, Phys. Rev. A 58, 3248 (1998); P. R. Berman,
ibid. 59, 585 (1999); M. G. Moore, O. Zobay, P.
Meystre, http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/cond-mat/9902293.
18. M. Olshanii, Y. Castin, J. Dalibard, in Proceedings ofthe XII Conference on Laser Spectroscopy, M. Inguscio, M. Allegrini, A. Sasso, Eds. (World Scientiﬁc, New
York, 1995), pp. 7–12; H. M. Wiseman and M. J.
Collett, Phys. Lett. A 202, 246 (1995); U. Janicke and
M. Wilkens, in Topics on Ultracold Atoms and BEC 7,
K. Burnett, Ed. (Optical Society of America, Washington, DC, 1997), pp. 38 – 47.
19. We thank C. E. Kuklewicz for experimental assistance,

574

D. A. Kokorowski for critical reading of the manuscript, and H. M. Gibbs, P. Meystre, J. H. Eberly, E. M.
Wright, and M. S. Feld for helpful discussions. This
work was supported by the Ofﬁce of Naval Research,
NSF, Joint Services Electronics Program (Army Research Ofﬁce), NASA, and the David and Lucile Pack-

ard Foundation. A.P.C acknowledges support from
NSF, D.M.S.-K. from the Joint Services Electronics
Program Graduate Fellowship Program, and J.S. fromthe Alexander von Humboldt–Foundation.
27 April 1999; accepted 28 June 1999

The U.S. Carbon Budget:
Contributions from Land-Use
ChangeR. A. Houghton,* J. L. Hackler, K. T. Lawrence
The rates at which lands in the United States were cleared for agriculture,
abandoned, harvested for wood, and burned were reconstructed from historical
data for the period 1700 –1990 and used in a terrestrial carbon model tocalculate annual changes in the amount of carbon stored in terrestrial ecosystems, including wood products. Changes in land use released 27 ⫾ 6 petagrams of carbon to the atmosphere before 1945 and accumulated 2 ⫾ 2petagrams of carbon after 1945, largely as a result of ﬁre suppression and forest
growth on abandoned farmlands. During the 1980s, the net ﬂux of carbon
attributable to land management offset 10 to 30 percent of U.S. fossil fuelemissions.
The rate at which carbon is accumulating interrestrial ecosystems in the United States is
uncertain, as are the mechanisms responsible
for the current sink. Estimates based on measured changes in wood volumes (forest inventories) (1–3) range between 0.079 and
0.280 petagrams of carbon per year (Pg C
year⫺1). An estimate, based on atmosphericand oceanic data and models, and including
southern Canada, calculated a sink of 1.7 ⫾0.5 Pg C year⫺1 (4). Neither of these approaches identifies the mechanisms responsible for the sink (5). In contrast, although thechanges in carbon associated with land-use
change do not define the total net flux ofcarbon between land and atmosphere, they
represent the portion of the flux that can be
attributed to direct human activity, and it is
this portion that is addressed by the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change and by the Kyoto Protocol. In thisreport, we estimate the annual flux of carbon
in the United States attributable to changes inland use.
Our approach is based on two types of
information: rates of land-use change andchanges per hectare in carbon that follow achange in land use. We considered the conversion of natural ecosystems to croplands(cultivated) and pastures (not cultivated), theabandonment of croplands and pastures, harvest of industrial wood and fuel wood, andfire management, that is, the area annually
Woods Hole Research Center, Post Ofﬁce Box 296,
Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA.
*To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: rhoughton@whrc.org

burned by wildfires. Rates of agriculturalclearing and abandonment and rates of wood
harvest were obtained directly from the U.S.
Department of Agriculture (USDA) for theperiod since 1945 (6) and largely from the
U.S. Bureau of Census (7) for the period
between 1700 and 1945. Areas burned eachyear were obtained from wildfire statistics of
the U.S. Forest Service (8) for the period after
1930 and from pre-European burning rates(9) modified by settlement and logging practices for the years 1700 –1930 (10). A moredetailed description of the data, sources, andassumptions can be found elsewhere (11, 12).
We divided the United States into sevengeographic regions (each region including
two to five natural ecosystems) for a total of
13 different ecosystems, not including croplands and pastures. The areas and carbon
stocks of ecosystems in 1700 were determined from both natural areas (13) and current ecosystems (14). The fractions of vegetation left alive, killed, and burned as a resultof human activity and fire were defined foreach type of land use and ecosystem. The
efficiency of industrial wood harvest increased through time, so that more wood wasremoved per hectare and less left as slash(dead vegetation) (15, 16). Rates of forest
growth after harvest, fire, and agricultural
abandonment and rates of decay of organic
matter for each ecosystem were obtained
from the ecological literature (17). Changes
in soil carbon included only the losses that
resulted from cultivation and the reaccumulations that followed abandonment of cultivated land. These per hectare rates of carbon
loss and accumulation after changes in land

23 JULY 1999 VOL 285 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org

Appendix E

Phase-coherent ampliﬁcation of
atomic matter waves
This appendix includes the following paper [19]: S. Inouye, T. Pfau, S. Gupta, A.P.
Chikkatur, A. Görlitz, D.E. Pritchard, and W. Ketterle, “Phase-coherent ampliﬁcationof atomic matter waves,” Nature 402, 641 (1999).

106

letters to nature
3. Girvin, S. M. & MacDonald, A. H. in Perspectives in Quantum Hall Effects (eds Das Sama, S. & Pinczuk,A.) 161±224 (Wiley, New York, 1996).
4. Giuliani, G. F. & Quinn, J. J. Spin-polarization instability in a tilted magnetic ®eld of a twodimensional electron gas with ®lled Landau levels. Phys. Rev. B 31, 6228±6232 (1985).
5. Jungwirth, T., Shukla, S. P., SmrcÏka, L., Shayegan, M. & MacDonald, A. H. Magnetic anisotropy inquantum Hall ferromagnets. Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 2328±2331 (1998).
6. Zheng, L., Radtke, R. J. & Das Sarma, S. Spin-excitation-instability-induced quantum phasetransitions in double-layer quantum Hall systems. Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 2453±2456 (1997).
7. Das Sarma, S., Sachdev, S. & Zheng, L. Double-layer quantum Hall antiferromagnetism at ®lling
fraction n = 2/m where m is an odd integer. Phys. Rev. Lett. 79; 917±920 (1997).
8. MacDonald, A. H., Rajaraman, R. & Jungwirth, T. Broken symmetry ground states in n = 2 bilayer
quantum Hall systems. Phys. Rev. B 60, 8817±8826 (1999).
9. Eisenstein, J. P. Perspectives in Quantum Hall Effects (eds Das Sarma, S. & Pinczuk, A.) 58±70 (Wiley,
New York, 1996).
10. Daneshvar, A. J. et al. Magnetisation instability in a two-dimensional system. Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 4449±
4452 (1997).
11. Pellegrini, V. et al. Collapse of spin excitations in quantum Hall states of coupled electron double
layers. Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 310±313 (1997).
12. Pellegrini, V. et al. Evidence of soft-mode quantum phase transitions in electron double layers. Science
281, 799±802 (1998).
13. Sawada, A. et al. Phase transition in the n = 2 bilayer quantum Hall state. Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 4534±
4537 (1998).
14. Sachdev, S. Quantum Phase Transitions (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1999).
15. Sondhi, S. L., Girvin, S. M., Carini, J. P. & Shahar, D. Continuous quantum phase transitions. Rev.
Mod. Phys. 69, 315±333 (1997).
16. MacDonald, A. H., Platzman, P. M. & Boebinger, G. S. Collapse of integer Hall gaps in a doublequantum-well system. Phys. Rev. Lett. 65, 775±778 (1990).
17. Cho, H. et al. Hysteresis and spin transitions in the fractional quantum Hall effect. Phys. Rev. Lett. 81,
2522±2525 (1998).

Acknowledgements
We thank M. Bichler for technical support during sample growth, and G. F. Giuliani for
discussions. The work at Scuola Normale Superiore was funded in part by MURST. The
work at Indiana University was supported by the NSF, and at Institute of Physics ASCR by
the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic and the Grant Agency of the Czech
Republic.
Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to V. Piazza(e-mail: piazza@cmp.sns.it).

.................................................................
Phase-coherent ampli®cationof atomic matter waves

S. Inouye, T. Pfau, S. Gupta, A. P. Chikkatur, A. GoÈrlitz, D. E. Pritchard& W. Ketterle
Department of Physics and Research Laboratory of Electronics,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA..............................................................................................................................................

Atomic matter waves, like electromagnetic waves, can be focused,re¯ected, guided and split by currently available passive atomoptical elements. However, the key for many applications ofelectromagnetic waves lies in the availability of ampli®ers.
These active devices allow small signals to be detected, and led
to the development of masers and lasers. Although coherent
atomic beams have been produced1±4, matter wave ampli®cation
has not been directly observed. Here we report the observation ofphase-coherent ampli®cation of atomic matter waves. The active
medium is a Bose±Einstein condensate, pumped by light that is
far off resonance. An atomic wave packet is split off the condensate by diffraction from an optical standing wave, and thenampli®ed. We veri®ed the phase coherence of the ampli®er byobserving interference of the output wave with a reference wave
packet. This development provides a new tool for atom optics andatom interferometry, and opens the way to the construction ofactive matter-wave devices.
Matter-wave ampli®cation differs from light ampli®cation in one
important respect. Because the total number of atoms is conserved(in contrast to photons), the active medium of a matter-wave
ampli®er has to include a reservoir of atoms. Also needed is a
NATURE | VOL 402 | 9 DECEMBER 1999 | www.nature.com

coupling mechanism that transfers atoms from the reservoir to the
input mode while conserving energy and momentum. Ampli®cation is realized if the transfer mechanism is accelerated by the buildup of atoms in the ®nal state and inversion is maintained between
the initial and ®nal states.
It is convenient to use a Bose±Einstein condensate with its highphase-space density to realize matter-wave ampli®cation, although
in principle it is not necessary1±4. This is analogous to the situationin optics where coherent light is used for pumping parametricampli®ers. The momentum required to transfer atoms from thecondensate at rest to the input mode can be provided by lightscattering. As was discussed in refs 5 and 6, a condensate pumped by
an off-resonant laser acts as a matter-wave ampli®er. It can amplify
input matter waves within the momentum range that can bereached by scattering a single pump photon. Energy is conserved
because the scattered light has lower frequency.
The inversion in this matter-wave ampli®er is most apparent inthe `dressed atom' picture, where the condensate at rest and thepump light ®eld form an upper state that can decay into recoilingatoms and scattered photons. The escape of the photons maintains
inversion, allowing, in principle, a complete transfer of the condensate atoms into the recoil mode.
The gain process can be explained in a semiclassical picture. The
input matter wave of wavevector Kj interferes with the condensate atrest, and forms a moving matter-wave grating; this grating diffracts
the pump light with wavevector k0 into the momentum and energy
conserving direction ki  k0 2 Kj . The momentum imparted by
the photon scattering is absorbed by the matter-wave grating bycoherently transferring an atom from the condensate into the recoil
mode, which is the input mode. The diffraction ef®ciency of thegrating is proportional to the square of the depth of the density
modulation, and therefore to the number of atoms in the input
mode, Nj. This implies an exponential growth of Nj (as long as one
can neglect the depletion of the condensate at rest).
The ampli®cation of atoms in a recoil mode j follows a gain
equation7,8
NÇ j  Gj 2 Lj N j
1with the gain coef®cient
sin2 vj
Gj  RN 02
­
8p=3 jHere R is the rate for single-atom Rayleigh scattering which is
proportional to the pump light intensity, N0 is the number of atoms
in the condensate at rest, vj is the angle between the polarization of
the incident light and the direction of the scattered light, and ­j is
the phase-matching solid angle for scattering into mode j. The loss
term Lj describes the decoherence rate of the matter-wave grating
and determines the threshold for exponential growth (see ref. 7 fordetails). We have recently observed the build-up of superradiantemission due to this gain, and have con®rmed the salient features ofthe model presented above. Previous theoretical discussions of thissystem had assumed an optical cavity into which the pump light isscattered5,6, but our experiment7 showed that cigar-shaped condensates have suf®cient gain for axial light emission, even in freespace. In our observation of superradiance, there were no input
atoms, and the build-up of a macroscopic matter wave was initiatedby spontaneous scattering. Here we characterize the ampli®cation
process by providing a variable input and measuring the amplitude
and phase of the ampli®ed matter wave.
Cigar-shaped Bose±Einstein condensates of a few million sodium
atoms in the F  1, mF  2 1 state were produced in a magnetic
trap using the standard techniques of laser cooling and evaporative
cooling9. The condensate was 200 mm in length and 18 mm indiameter. Input matter waves with a well de®ned momentum
were generated by exposing the condensate to a pulsed opticalstanding wave which transferred a small fraction of the atoms(10-4 to 10-2) into a recoil mode by Bragg diffraction10,11. The© 1999 Macmillan Magazines Ltd

641

letters to nature
frequencies of both laser beams were red-detuned by 1.7 GHz fromthe 3S1/2, F  1 ! 3P3=2 , F  0, 1, 2 transition, and the intensities
were kept below the threshold for superradiant Rayleigh scattering7.
The geometry of the light beams is shown in Fig. 1. The beam which
was perpendicular to the long axis of the condensate (the radialbeam) was blue-detuned by 50 kHz relative to the axial beam. This
detuning ful®lls the Bragg resonance condition; that is, it corresponds to the kinetic energy of the recoiling atoms. The broadeningof the Bragg resonance by the ®nite pulse length (10 ms) was smallenough to prevent the off-resonant excitation of other diffraction
orders.
Ampli®cation of the input matter wave was realized by applying
an intense pump pulse along the direction of the radial Bragg beam
for the next 20 ms with a typical intensity of 40 mW cm-2. The
number of atoms in the recoil mode was determined by suddenly
switching off the trap and observing the ballistically expanding
cloud of atoms after 35 ms using resonant absorption imaging. Afterthe expansion, the condensate and the recoiling atoms were fully
separated (Fig. 2a±c).
Figure 2 shows the input±output characteristics of the ampli®er.
The number of input atoms was below the detection limit of ourabsorption imaging (Fig. 2a) and was determined from a calibrationof the Bragg process at high laser powers, where the diffracted atoms
were clearly visible in the images. For short pulses, the diffraction
ef®ciency was quadratic in the laser power, as expected. The
ampli®cation pulse alone, although above the threshold forsuperradiance7, did not generate a discernible signal of atoms in
the recoil mode (Fig. 2b). When the weak input matter wave wasadded, the ampli®ed signal was clearly visible (Fig. 2c). The gain was
controlled by the intensity of the pump pulse (see equation (2)) andtypically varied between 10 and 100. Figure 2d shows the observed
linear relationship between the atom numbers in the input and theampli®ed output with a number gain of 30.
The phase of the ampli®ed matter wave was determined with aninterferometric technique. For this, a reference matter wave wassplit off the condensate in the trap in the same manner as the ®rst
(input) wave. The phase of the reference matter wave was scannedby shifting the phase of the radio-frequency signal that drove theacousto-optic modulator generating the axial Bragg beam. We thenobserved the interference between the reference and the ampli®edmatter waves by measuring the number of atoms in the recoil mode.

If we characterize the two interfering matter waves by their atom
numbers Ni and normalized wavefunctions wi, then the visibility Vof the interference pattern is given by:p
2hw1 jw2 i N 1 N 2V3
N1  N2p
, 2hw1 jw2 i N 1 =N 2 N 1 p N 2 
4This simple description is valid for small transfer ef®ciencies of the
Bragg pulses (N i p N 0 ). A more general description treats the two
Bragg pulses as a Ramsey-type matter-wave interferometer12, where
the phase of the matter-wave grating (formed by the recoiling atoms
and the condensate) is compared with the phase of the standingwave light grating used for the second Bragg transition. This
treatment reproduces equation (3), where N1 is replaced by
N 1 1 2 N 2 =N 0  and N2 by N 2 1 2 N 1 =N 0 .
In Fig. 3 we show the interference signal between the ampli®ed input
and the reference matter wave as the reference phase was scanned.
When the amplitude of the input was comparable to that of thereference matter wave, high-contrast fringes were observed even without ampli®cation (Fig. 3a). When the input was about 40 times weakerin population, fringes were barely visible (Fig. 3b). After ampli®cation,
we regained a large visibility (Fig. 3c). This increase in visibility proves
the coherent nature of the matter-wave ampli®cation process.
The visibility was studied as a function of the number of input
atoms (Fig. 4). Since ampli®cation did not produce any observable
phase shift, the visibility could be measured by comparing thenumber of atoms in the recoil mode at constructive and destructive
phases. Without ampli®cation, the visibility increased with thenumber of input atoms in fair agreement with equation (3),assuming hw1 jw2 i ,1 for the overlap factor. With ampli®cation(under the same conditions which gave a number gain of 30(Fig. 2)), the visibility increased by a factor of about two over a
a

c

b

d

0.05

Nout / N 0

p.
Am
time

φ
φ

Free
expansion
0.00

10 µs

20 µs

10 µs

35ms

0.000

0.001

0.002

N in / N 0

Figure 1 Experimental scheme for observing phase-coherent matter-wave ampli®cation.
A small-amplitude matter wave was split off the condensate by applying a pulse of two offresonant laser beams (Bragg pulse). This input matter wave was ampli®ed by passing it
through the condensate pumped by a laser beam. The coherence of the ampli®ed wave
was veri®ed by observing its interference with a reference matter wave, which was
produced by applying a second (reference) Bragg pulse to the condensate. Theinterference signal was observed after 35 ms of ballistic expansion. Note that thepolarization of the radial beam was perpendicular to the long axis of the condensate(v  p=2). Extinction of the axial beam during the amplifying pulse was better than 10-8.
642

Figure 2 Input±output characteristics of the matter-wave ampli®er. a±c, Typical time-of¯ight absorption images demonstrating matter-wave ampli®cation. The output of theseeded ampli®er (c) is clearly visible, as indicated by the arrow, whereas no recoilingatoms are discernible in the case without ampli®cation (a) or ampli®cation without the
input (b). The size of the images is 2:8 mm 3 2:3 mm. d, Output of the ampli®er as afunction of the number of atoms at the input. A straight-line ®t shows a number gain of 30.
Note that the same data set as in Fig. 4 was used. The total number of ampli®ed atoms
was determined by measuring the increase in the offset of the obtained interference
fringes discussed below.

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letters to nature

N / N0

0.4

a

c

b

0.2

0.0
0

1

0

1

0

1

Phase / πFigure 3 Phase-coherent ampli®cation of matter waves. Shown is the number of atoms N
in the recoil mode (normalized by the initial number of atoms in the condensate N0) versus
the relative phase between the two Bragg pulses. a, Interference between two matterwaves of almost equal intensity yielded a high contrast fringe (visibility V  52%). b,
When the intensity of the ®rst matter was decreased by a factor of 40, the visibility V
dropped to the noise level ,15%. c, By switching on the ampli®er, a large visibility wasregained (V  31%).

wide range of input intensities.pSince for a small number of atoms
N1, the visibility increases as N 1 (equation (4)), this implies a``coherent matter-wave gain'' of at least four. The discrepancy fromthe number gain of 30 may be due to a distortion of the input matterwave during its ampli®cation which would reduce the overlap factor
hw1|w2i. Indeed, the shape of the ampli®ed matter wave looked
distorted after the 35 ms of ballistic expansion. This indicates a
wavefront distortion of the ampli®ed matter wavepwhich can beparametrized by introducing an overlap factor of 4=30  0:4 inequation (3), but this effect requires further study. No distortion
was seen at short times (1.5 ms) after the ampli®cation (as observedby phase-contrast imaging). This and a simple model suggest thatthe spatially non-uniform gain is not the dominant cause of the
non-ideal visibility.
The interference between the (ampli®ed) signal and the reference
matter wave was measured in a two-pulse interferometer where thedelay time between the pulses was kept shorter than the coherencetime of the two-photon Bragg process (,40 ms; ref. 7). The
coherence time can be determined by the linewidth of the Bragg
resonance11, or by the decay rate of the Ramsey fringe visibility12. In
the absence of mean-®eld broadening, it is proportional to thespatial extent of the condensate divided by the recoil velocity11,12.
We deliberately studied the matter-wave ampli®cation in thesmall-signal limit. We chose a low density of the condensate, a small
number of input atoms, and rather low gain in order to avoid
additional complexities such as elastic collisions and repeatedsuperradiant scattering7. The density of the condensate was adjusted
to be less than 2 3 1014 cm 2 3 by limiting the number of condensed
atoms. The average number of (incoherent) elastic collisions occurring between the two Bragg pulses was less than 0.05 per recoilingatom, and should be negligible.
The input matter waves were generated in perfect spatial overlap
with the condensate by Bragg pulses. In further experiments, wehave also observed the single-pass ampli®cation of input atomic
wave packets which were initially spatially separated from thecondensate. This was achieved by letting the input wave packet
oscillate in the trapping potential for half an oscillation period
before applying the ampli®cation light pulse. As the wave packet
passed through the pumped condensate at rest, ampli®cation was
clearly observed.
The matter-wave ampli®er that we have demonstrated ampli®es
only the recoil states that can be populated by normal Rayleighscattering. Their momentum is located on a sphere with radius j~k0 jcentred at the incoming photon momentum (~k0 ). We haveachieved perfect momentum matching by using the radial beam
for the Bragg process as the pump beam for the ampli®cation
process. Ultimately, the momentum bandwidth of the ampli®cation
process should be given by the momentum uncertainty of thecondensate, which is roughly Planck's constant divided by the sizeof the condensate.
NATURE | VOL 402 | 9 DECEMBER 1999 | www.nature.com

Visibility V

0.5

0.0
0.001

0.01

0.1

1

N in / N ref

Figure 4 Visibility of interference with and without ampli®cation. The visibility of theinterference pattern between input (output) and the reference matter wave is shown with
open (®lled) circles as a function of the input number of atoms Nin (normalized by the
population of the reference matter wave Nref). The solid line is the expected visibility fromequation (3), assuming an overlap factor of unity. The intensity of the ampli®cation pulse
was 40 mW cm-2.

The ampli®cation process studied in this work is based onbosonic stimulation: if N bosons occupy a given state, the transition
rates into that state are proportional to N  1. Some experiments
have seen such accelerated transition rates without observing phasecoherence7,13,14. A study of the formation of the condensate showed
evidence for bosonic stimulation in the elastic scattering of atoms
into the condensate13, an irreversible process establishing thermal
equilibrium. The recently demonstrated four-wave mixing ofatoms14 also relied on bosonic stimulation of atom±atom collisions,but in this case as a coherent process mediated by the mean ®eld.
Bosonic stimulation has been discussed as the gain mechanism of
atom lasers, either based on evaporation or optical pumping1±4. In
these discussions, the idea was to start with a thermal cloud of low
phase-space density and create a large population in a single matterwave mode. Our experiments exploited the high phase-spacedensity of a condensate to realize a high matter-wave gain. In
principle, we could have used an optically pumped thermal cloud
as a gain medium, but the gain would have been extremely small dueto the large Doppler broadening.
Our experiment can also be regarded as a demonstration of anactive atom interferometer. It realizes a two-pulse atom interferometer15 with phase-coherent ampli®cation in one of the arms.
Such active interferometers may be advantageous for precise
measurements of phase shifts in highly absorptive media; forexample, measurements of the index of (matter wave) refraction
when a condensate passes through a gas of atoms or molecules16.
As the most accurate optical gyroscopes involve active interferometers17, atom ampli®cation might also play a role in future
matter-wave gyroscopes18.
Note added in proof : M. Kozuma has informed us that related work
has been done at the University of Tokyo.
M
Received 9 November; accepted 18 November 1999.
1. Holland, M., Burnett, K., Gardiner, C., Cirac, J. & Zoller, P. Theory of an atom laser. Phys. Rev. A 54,
R1757±R1760 (1996).
2. Olshanii, M., Castin, Y. & Dalibard, J. in Proc. XII Conf. on Laser Spectroscopy (eds Inguscio, M.,
Allegrini, M. & Sasso, A.) 7±12 (World Scienti®c, New York, 1995).
3. Spreeuw, R. J. C., Pfau, T., Janicke, U. & Wilkens, M. Laser-like scheme for atomic-matter waves. Eur.
Phys. Lett. 32, 469±474 (1995).
4. Wiseman, H. M. & Collett, M. J. An atom laser based on dark-state cooling. Phys. Lett. A 202, 246±252(1995).
5. Law, C. K. & Bigelow, N. P. Amplifying an atomic wave signal using a Bose-Einstein condensate. Phys.
Rev. A 58, 4791±4795 (1998).
6. Moore, M. G. & Meystre, P. Optical control and entanglement of atomic SchroÈdinger ®elds. Phys. Rev.
A 59, R1754±R1757 (1999).
7. Inouye, S. et al. Superradiant Rayleigh scattering from a Bose-Einstein condensate. Science 285, 571±
574 (1999).

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8. Moore, M. G. & Meystre, P. Theory of superradiant scattering of laser light from Bose-Einsteincondensates. Preprint cond-mat/9905425 at hhttp://xxx.lanl.govi (1999).
9. Mewes, M.-O. et al. Bose-Einstein condensation in a tightly con®ning dc magnetic trap. Phys. Rev.
Lett. 77, 416±419 (1996).
10. Kozuma, M. et al. Coherent splitting of Bose-Einstein condensed atoms with optically induced Bragg
diffraction. Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 871±875 (1999).
11. Stenger, J. et al. Bragg spectroscopy of a Bose-Einstein condensate. Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 4569±4573 (1999).
12. Hagley, E. W. et al. Measurement of the coherence of a Bose-Einstein condensate. Phys. Rev. Lett. 83,3112±3115 (1999).
13. Miesner, H.-J. et al. Bosonic stimulation in the formation of a Bose-Einstein condensate. Science 279,
1005±1007 (1998).
14. Deng, L. et al. Four-wave mixing with matter waves. Nature 398, 218±220 (1999).
15. Berman, P. R. (ed.) Atom Interferometry (Academic, New York, 1997).
16. Schmiedmayer, J. et al. Index of refraction of various gases for sodium matter waves. Phys. Rev. Lett.
74, 1043±1047 (1995).
17. Stedman, G. E. et al. Ring-laser tests of fundamental physics and geophysics. Rep. Prog. Phys. 60, 615±
688 (1997).
18. Gustavson, T. L., Bouyer, P. & Kasevich, M. A. Precision rotation measurements with an atominterferometer gyroscope. Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 2046±2049 (1997).

Acknowledgements
We thank D. M. Stamper-Kurn for discussions. This work was supported by the Of®ce ofNaval Research, NSF, Joint Services Electronics Program, ARO, NASA, and the David andLucile Packard Foundation. A.P.C. was supported by NSF, A.G. by DAAD, and T.P. by theAlexander von Humboldt Foundation.
Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to S.I.
(e-mail: sinouye@mit.edu).

.................................................................
Weaker Gulf Stream in the
Florida Straits during theLast Glacial Maximum

Jean Lynch-Stieglitz*, William B. Curry² & Niall Slowey³* Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lamont-Doherty Earth
Observatory, Palisades, New York 10964, USA² Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543, USA³ Department of Oceanography, Texas A & M University, College Station,
Texas 77843, USA..............................................................................................................................................

As it passes through the Florida Straits, the Gulf Stream consistsof two main components: the western boundary ¯ow of the winddriven subtropical gyre and the northward-¯owing surface andintermediate waters which are part of the `global conveyor belt',
compensating for the deep water that is exported from the North
Atlantic Ocean1. The mean ¯ow through the Straits is largely ingeostrophic balance and is thus re¯ected in the contrast in
seawater density across the Straits2. Here we use oxygen-isotope
ratios of benthic foraminifera which lived along the ocean
margins on the boundaries of the Florida Current during theLast Glacial Maximum to determine the density structure in thewater and thereby reconstruct transport through the Straits using
the geostrophic methodÐa technique which has been usedsuccessfully for estimating present-day ¯ow3. Our data suggestthat during the Last Glacial Maximum, the density contrast acrossthe Florida Straits was reduced, with the geostrophic ¯ow,
referenced to the bottom of the channel, at only about twothirds of the modern value. If the wind-driven western boundary¯ow was not lower during the Last Glacial Maximum than today,these results indicate a signi®cantly weaker conveyor-belt component of the Gulf Stream compared to present-day values.
Whereas previous studies based on tracers suggested that deep
waters of North Atlantic origin were not widespread during
glacial times, indicating either a relatively weak or a shallow
overturning cell, our results provide evidence that the overturning cell was indeed weaker during glacial times.
644

The Florida Current, which ¯ows through the Florida Straits(Fig. 1), is the southernmost part of the Gulf Stream. The averagenorthward transport of the Florida Current is fairly well constrainedby modern measurement at 30±32 Sv, and shows a seasonal variation with a range of 4.6 Sv as well as considerable variability on
shorter timescales4. Schmitz and McCartney1 assign an uncertainty
of only 5% to the mean annual transport value of 31 Sv. The
transport at the Florida Current includes 13 Sv of ¯ow from theSouth Atlantic which travels northward in the Gulf Stream to theNorth Atlantic and ultimately compensates for the export of North
Atlantic Deep Water (NADW). The other 17 Sv compensate forsouthward-¯owing upper waters from the eastern portion of thewind-driven North-Atlantic subtropical gyre1. The strong tilts in thesurfaces of constant temperature and density within the Florida
Straits re¯ect the geostrophic adjustment of the density surfaces in
the presence of the large velocities (Fig. 2a and b). The contrast in
temperature and density across the Florida Current is large, and iswell represented in the d18O of benthic foraminifera living in thisregion.
We can use the d18O from the calcite tests of foraminifera toestimate density because both the d18O of calcite (d18Ocalcite) anddensity increase as a result of increasing salinity or decreasing
temperature. The dependence of seawater density on salinity andtemperature is well known and will be constant throughout theocean and through geological time. The dependence of d18O offoraminifera on the temperature of calci®cation is also fairly wellconstrained. The fractionation between calcite precipitated inorganically and the water in which it forms increases by about 0.2½
for every 1 8C decrease in temperature5, and the isotopic composition of calcitic benthic foraminifera in the genera Planulina andCibicidoides show the same fractionation as measured in theexperiments with inorganic calcite3. The relationship between
d18Ocalcite and salinity is more complex. The d18Ocalcite re¯ects the
d18O of the water in which the foraminifera grew. The d18O of
sea water (d18Owater) primarily re¯ects patterns of evaporation andfreshwater in¯ux to the surface of the ocean. Because salinity alsore¯ects these patterns, salinity and d18Owater are often well correlated
in the ocean. Although the exact relationship varies in different
areas of the surface ocean6, the vast majority of surface and warm
subsurface waters (T . 5 8C) in the ocean have salinity and d18Owater
values which scatter around a linear trend3. For times in thegeological past, our ability to reconstruct density from the d18Ocalcite

Figure 1 Location of sediment cores used in this study. The path of the Gulf Stream isindicated with the shaded arrow, and the depth of the 200-m isobath with a dashed line.

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Appendix F

Ampliﬁcation of Light and Atoms
in a Bose-Einstein Condensate
This appendix includes the following paper [20]: S. Inouye, R.F. Low, S. Gupta, T. Pfau,
A. Görlitz, T.L. Gustavson, D.E. Pritchard, and W. Ketterle, “Ampliﬁcation of Light andAtoms in a Bose-Einstein Condensate,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 4225 (2000).

111

VOLUME 85, NUMBER 20

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

13 NOVEMBER 2000

Ampliﬁcation of Light and Atoms in a Bose-Einstein Condensate
S. Inouye, R. F. Löw, S. Gupta, T. Pfau, A. Görlitz, T. L. Gustavson, D. E. Pritchard, and W. Ketterle
Department of Physics and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139(Received 27 June 2000)
A Bose-Einstein condensate illuminated by a single off-resonant laser beam (“dressed condensate”)
shows a high gain for matter waves and light. We have characterized the optical and atom-opticalproperties of the dressed condensate by injecting light or atoms, illuminating the key role of long-lived
matter wave gratings produced by the condensate at rest and recoiling atoms. The narrow bandwidth for
optical gain gave rise to an extremely slow group velocity of an ampliﬁed light pulse (⬃1 m兾s).
PACS numbers: 03.75.Fi, 42.50.Ct, 42.50.Gy

The ﬁeld of atom optics is based on profound analogies
between electromagnetic waves and matter waves. Both
light and atoms can be ampliﬁed by bosonic stimulation,and this has led to the optical laser and the atom laser,
respectively. Recently, Bose-Einstein condensates illuminated by an off-resonant laser beam (“dressed condensates”) were used to realize phase-coherent ampliﬁcationof matter waves [1,2]. The ampliﬁcation process involved
the scattering of a condensate atom and a laser photon into
an atom in a recoil mode and a scattered photon. This
four-wave mixing process between two electromagnetic
ﬁelds and two Schrödinger ﬁelds became a self-amplifying
process above a threshold laser intensity, leading to matter wave gain. However, the symmetry between light andatoms indicates that a dressed condensate should not only
amplify injected atoms, but also injected light.
In this paper, we focus on the optical properties of adressed condensate above and below the threshold for thematter wave ampliﬁcation. The optical gain below thethreshold has a narrow bandwidth due to the long coherence time of a condensate. This resulted in an extremely
slow group velocity for the ampliﬁed light. Above thethreshold, we observed nonlinear behavior in the optical
gain. This is due to the buildup of a macroscopic matter wave grating inside the condensate and was observedin situ by a pump-probe measurement.
Figure 1a shows the basic light scattering process.
An atom scatters a photon from the laser beam (called“dressing beam”) into another mode and receives thecorresponding recoil momentum and energy. Injectionof atoms or light turns this spontaneous process intoa stimulated process. If atoms are injected, they forma matter wave grating (an interference pattern with thecondensate at rest) and this grating diffracts light. The
diffraction transfers recoil momentum and energy tothe atoms, which results in a growth of the grating andtherefore the number of atoms in the recoil mode — thisis the intuitive picture for atom gain. If probe lightis injected, it forms a moving standing wave with the
dressing beam, and this light grating diffracts atoms. Thisdiffraction transfers photons into the probe beam mode,
resulting in optical gain.
0031-9007兾00兾85(20)兾4225(4)$15.00

For low dressing beam intensity, the probe beam gain isdue to the two-photon gain of individual atoms (Fig. 1b).
By introducing the dressed atom picture [3], the optical
gain can be understood as the gain of a fully inverted
two-level system (Fig. 1c). The atoms in the condensate
and the photons in the dressing beam form a dressed condensate, corresponding to the upper state (j10 典). The lower
state is the recoil state of atoms (j2典) and the dressed condensate can “decay” to the lower state by emitting a photon into the probe beam mode. A fully inverted two-levelsystem with dipole coupling would have a gain cross section of 6pl-2 for radiation with wavelength l关苷 共2p兲l-兴.
For the Raman-type system in Fig. 1b, the gain is reduced by the excited state fraction, RD 兾G (where RD is
the Rayleigh scattering rate for the dressing beam and G
is the linewidth of the single-photon atomic resonance)
and increased by G兾G2 , the ratio of the linewidths of thesingle-photon and two-photon Bragg resonances. Thus the
expected cross section for gain isRDsgain 苷 6pl-2
,
(1)
G2
(a)

Recoiling
atoms
Matter wave
grating
BEC

Probe
beam
“Dressing”
beam

(b)

∆

“Dressing”
beam
|1>

Probe
beam

(c)

|2>
|1’>

Probe
beam
PMT

|2>

FIG. 1. Ampliﬁcation of light and atoms by off-resonant lightscattering. (a) The fundamental process is the absorption of aphoton from the “dressing” beam by an atom in the condensate(state j1典), which is transferred to a recoil state (state j2典) byemitting a photon into the probe ﬁeld. The intensity in theprobe light ﬁeld was monitored by a photomultiplier. ( b) The
two-photon Raman-type transition between two motional
states (j1典, j2典) gives rise to a narrow resonance. (c) The dressed
condensate is the upper state (j10 典) of a two-level system, anddecays to the lower state (recoil state of atoms, j2典) by emitting
a photon.

© 2000 The American Physical Society

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which is proportional to the intensity of the dressing beam.
A Bose– Einstein condensate has a very narrow twophoton resonance width G2 of only a few kHz. The
residual linewidth stems from the loss of overlap between
the two motional states and from the inhomogeneousdensity distribution [4].
A gain with narrow bandwidth causes a slow group velocity of light. The gain represents the imaginary part ofthe complex index of refraction. A sharp peak in the gain
implies a steep dispersive shape for the real part of the index of refraction n共v兲. This results in a small value of thegroup velocity yg
yg 苷

c
dn

n 1 v dv,

(2)

and in large pulse delays. More precisely, a narrow-band
gain feature with gain g and width g leads to an ampliﬁed
pulse with a delay time of tD 苷 共lng兲兾g.
For the experimental study of optical properties of adressed condensate, elongated Bose– Einstein condensates consisting of several million sodium atoms in theF 苷 1, mF 苷 21 state were prepared in a magnetic trap[5]. The condensate was illuminated (“dressed”) with asingle laser beam that was red-detuned by 1.7 GHz fromthe 3S1兾2 , F 苷 1 ! 3P3兾2 , F 苷 0, 1, 2 transition. Boththe dressing beam and the probe beam were in the plane
perpendicular to the long axis of the condensate, andintersected at an angle of 135±. The probe beam was
red-detuned from the dressing beam by 91 kHz, which
was determined to be the resonance frequency for thetwo-photon Bragg transition. This small frequency difference between the two light beams was realized by deriving
both beams from a common source, and then passing

4

(a)

(b)

Gain

3

13 NOVEMBER 2000

them through two separate acousto-optical modulatorsthat were driven with separate frequency synthesizers.
The probe beam, which propagated parallel to the axisof imaging, was a few millimeters in diameter and muchlarger than the condensate, which was 20 mm in diameterand 200 mm in length. In order to block all the light that
did not pass through the condensate, a 25 mm 3 100 mm
slit was placed at an intermediate imaging plane where thecondensate was 2 times magniﬁed. The light transmitted
by the slit was recorded with a photomultiplier. The
polarization of each beam was set parallel to the long axisof the condensate to suppress superradiance to other recoilmodes [6].
The main results of this paper are shown in Figs. 2 and3. In order to measure the gain of the dressed condensate, we used long square probe pulses during which the
dressing beam was switched off (Fig. 2). At the lowest probe intensity, the depletion of atoms in the condensate was negligible and a clear step at the switch off
was observed, corresponding to a gain of ⬃2.8. The initialrise time ⬃100 ms is the coherence time of the dressed
condensate.
The square pulse response observed in Fig. 2a alreadyindicates long pulse delays. The distortion of the pulse
is due to the large frequency bandwidth contained in thesquare pulse. This was avoided by modifying the pulse
shape to be Gaussian, but keeping the peak intensity of theprobe beam at the same level. Figure 3a shows that such
pulses were delayed by about 20 ms across the 20 mm
wide condensate corresponding to a group velocity of
1 m兾s. This is, to the best of our knowledge, 1 order ofmagnitude smaller than any other value published thus
far [7].
At high probe laser power we observed Rabi oscillationsin the transmitted probe light (Fig. 2). Note that all the
traces were normalized by the probe beam intensity, andthe oscillatory trace at the bottom was obtained at the highest probe beam intensity. They reﬂect simple two-level

2

(b)

(a)

1

0.0

0.5
Dressing beam

0.0

Delay [µs]00.5Time [ms]Probe beam

FIG. 2. Gain and temporal behavior of light pulses propagating
through a dressed condensate. (a) Observed probe pulse output
from a dressed condensate. The probe light intensities were
5.7 mW兾cm2 ( bottom), 1.5 mW兾cm2 (middle), 0.10 mW兾cm2(top), while the dressing beam intensity was 5 mW兾cm2 , which
was just below the threshold for superradiance. The plottedsignals were normalized by the incident probe intensity andshow the gain for the probe light. ( b) Calculated probe light
output for the experimental parameters in (a). Rabi oscillations
develop into steady-state gain as the intensity of the probe lightis reduced.

4226

20

0
-0.2

0.0
0.2
Time [ms]

0.4

1

2

3

Gain

FIG. 3. Pulse delay due to light ampliﬁcation. (a) About
20 ms delay was observed when a Gaussian pulse of about
140 ms width and 0.11 mW兾cm2 peak intensity was sent
through the dressed condensate ( bottom trace). The top trace isa reference taken without the dressed condensate. Solid curves
are Gaussian ﬁts to guide the eyes. ( b) The observed delay tD
was proportional to 共lng兲, where g is the observed gain.

VOLUME 85, NUMBER 20

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

Rabi oscillations of atoms between states j1典 and j2典(Fig. 1b) driven by the two-photon Bragg coupling.
The transition from Rabi oscillations to steady-state gain
can be described by optical Bloch equations. The two-levelsystem j1典 and j2典 is coupled with the two-photon Rabi
frequency V 苷 VD Vp 兾2D where VD 共Vp 兲 is the Rabi frequency of the dressing (probe) beam and D is the detuning of the beams from the atomic resonance. The Blochequations for atoms at the two-photon resonance take thefollowing simple form:yᠨ 苷 2G2y 2 Vw ,2ᠨ 苷 Vy ,
w

(3)
(4)

where y 苷 2 Im共r12 兲 represents the amplitude of the matter wave grating (rij is the atomic density matrix) andw 苷 r22 2 r11 is the population difference between thetwo states.
Figure 2b shows the calculated probe output for a step
function input. Assuming constant V (valid for small optical gain), the solutions of the optical Bloch equations showeither Rabi oscillation (V ¿ G2 兾2) or damped behavior(V ø G2 兾2). By reducing the probe power, the Rabi oscillations slow down, and a (quasi-)steady-state gain is obtained in the limit that they are slower than the damping
time. It is in this regime that the perturbative treatment
with the complex index of refraction applies. Note that for
longer times 共¿G2 兾V 2 兲 the condensate becomes depleted.
For large optical gain, the Rabi frequency V increases
during the pulse and the above treatment is no longer valid.
ᠨ results in an
The population transfer to the recoil state (w)increase of the number of the probe beam photons insideᠨthe condensate volume: nᠨp 苷 c共np0 2 np 兲兾l 1 N0 w兾2,
where l is the length of the condensate with N0 atoms
and cnp0 兾l is the input photon ﬂux. This equationneglects propagation effects of the light by replacing
the nonuniform electric ﬁeld by an average value [8].
Replacing the photon number by the Rabi frequency
V 2 苷 RD 6pl-2 cnp 兾V (V is the volume of the condensate), we obtain
µ
∂
c
G
0
ᠨ
V苷
V 2V1
y ,
(5)
l
2
where V 0 is the two-photon Rabi frequency due to the input probe beam and the dressing beam, and G is deﬁned by
G 苷 N0 RD 6pl-2 兾2A (A is the cross section of the condensate perpendicular to the probe beam). The coupled equations (3) and (5) between the light and matter wave grating
are analogous to the optical laser, where the atomic polarization and the electric ﬁeld inside the cavity are coupled.
However, the roles of atoms and light are reversed: in the
optical laser, the cavity lifetime is usually longer than thecoherence time of the atomic polarization, whereas in ourcase the extremely long coherence time of the condensate
dominates.

13 NOVEMBER 2000

ᠨ 苷 0 in Eq. (5)]
Adiabatically eliminating the light [Vand neglecting condensate depletion (w 苷 21), we are
led toyᠨ 苷

G 2 G2y 1 V0.
2(6)Above the threshold for superradiance (G $ G2 ), thematter wave grating builds up exponentially. Below thethreshold, it relaxes with a time constant of 2兾共G2 2 G兲,providing a gain for the probe light ﬁeld of
11n0 sgain l
G2
G
苷11
,
G2 2 G2
G2 2 G(7)

where n0 is the condensate density. In the low intensity
limit, Eq. (7) reproduces the two-photon gain discussed
above [Eq. (1)]. Equation (7) shows that the effect of thecoupled equations is to replace the two-photon linewidth
G2 in Eq. (1) by the “dynamic” coherence decay rate G2 2
G. The expansion of the optical gain 1 1 G兾共G2 2 G兲 苷
1 1 共G兾G2 兲 1 共G兾G2 兲2 1 . . . shows the transition from(linear) single-atom gain to (nonlinear) collective gain. At
the onset of superradiance, the optical gain diverges.
We studied this transition by ﬁrst creating a matter wave
grating with a Bragg pulse (using the dressing and probe
beams), and then observing its time evolution by monitoring the diffracted dressing beam.
The grating showed a simple decay at lower dressing
beam intensities (Fig. 4a) [9]. At higher intensities, collective gain started to compensate the loss, and at intensities above a threshold, net ampliﬁcation was observed.
The initial growth rate (Fig. 4b) followed the linear dependence on the intensity of the dressing beam [~ 共G 2 G2 兲]
predicted by Eq. (6) and Refs. [6,10]. The net growth ofthe matter wave grating corresponds to atom ampliﬁcation which was studied previously by observing an increasein the number of recoiling atoms in time-of-ﬂight images[1]. Here we have monitored the dynamics of ampliﬁcation in situ by observing light instead of atoms.
Extrapolating the decay rate in Fig. 4b to zero intensity of the dressing beam, we obtained the decay time of
the matter wave grating G2 of 100 ms, in fair agreementwith the linewidth of the Bragg excitation process observed
previously [4].
Recent demonstrations of slow group velocities for light
focused on electromagnetically induced transparency in athree-level lambda system [7]. This system features a narrow dip in a broad absorption feature. In our system, thebroad absorption line is missing. Since the propagationof resonant laser pulses is mainly determined by the narrow feature, both systems show analogous behavior. In
the past, “superluminal” pulse propagation was observedin noninverted, absorptive two-level systems [11]. Our
scheme realizes the opposite case of gain and slow pulse
propagation [12].
The dressed condensate studied in this paper is a clean,model system for discussing optical and atom-optical
4227

(a)

0.00

0.10
Time [ms]PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS
Net growth rate [1/ms]

Scattered light intensity

VOLUME 85, NUMBER 20

30

(b)

20
10
0
-10
0.0
1.0
Dressing light intensity [1/ms]

FIG. 4. Pump-probe spectroscopy of a matter wave grating inside the condensate. (a) First, approximately 5% of atoms weretransferred to the recoil state by a 100 ms long Bragg pulse.
Then the dynamics of the matter wave grating was observedin situ by illuminating the grating with off-resonant light andmonitoring the diffracted light intensity. All traces were normalized to the same diffracted light intensity at t 苷 0. The dressing beam intensity was 2.9 mW兾cm2 ( bottom), 5.7 mW兾cm2(middle), and 13 mW兾cm2 (top). ( b) The initial growth rateof the grating vs light intensity shows the threshold for net
gain. The intensity of the dressing beam is given in units ofthe single-atom Rayleigh scattering rate.

properties. The optical ampliﬁcation can be described as areﬂection of the dressing light by a matter wave grating.
The initial delay time in the ampliﬁcation of optical pulses
is the time necessary to build up the (quasi-)steady-state
matter wave grating. The trailing edge of the transmitted
light pulse reﬂects the slow decay of quasiparticles. Thus,
the slow speed of light is simply related to the buildup anddecay of quasiparticles which we were able to monitor
directly.
The optical gain studied above clearly showed the transition from single-atom gain to collective gain. Previously,
recoil related gain based on single-atom phenomena (recoil
induced resonances) was observed in cold cesium atoms[13]. Collective gain due to the formation of a density
grating was discussed as a possible gain mechanism forlasing action [14] (named CARL — coherent atomic recoil
laser) and pursued experimentally [15] with ambiguous results (see [16] and the discussion in [17]). Our experiments
clearly identify the two regimes and their relationship.
Our observation of the decay of the matter wave grating
can be regarded as pump-probe spectroscopy of quasiparticles in the condensate. The seeding Bragg pulse created the condensate excitations in the free-particle regime.
By controlling the angle between the laser beams, one

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13 NOVEMBER 2000

can also excite phononlike quasiparticles [18]. Thus, thepump-probe scheme presented here could be directly applied to the study of their lifetimes.
In conclusion, we have characterized the optical andatom-optical properties of a dressed condensate. The
simple process of Rayleigh scattering gave rise to a richvariety of phenomena including steady-state gain, Rabi
oscillations, collective gain, and slow group velocities.
We have also introduced a pump-probe technique to study
the lifetime of quasiparticles in a condensate.
We thank D. M. Stamper-Kurn for critical reading of
the manuscript and A. P. Chikkatur for experimental assistance. This work was supported by the ONR, NSF,
ARO, NASA, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. A. G. acknowledges support from DAAD and T. P.
from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

[1] S. Inouye et al., Nature (London) 402, 641 (1999).
[2] M. Kozuma et al., Science 286, 2309 (1999).
[3] C. Cohen-Tannoudji, J. Dupont-Roc, and G. Grynberg,
Atom-Photon Interactions (Wiley, New York, 1992).
[4] J. Stenger et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 4569 (1999).
[5] M.-O. Mewes et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 416 (1996).
[6] S. Inouye et al., Science 285, 571 (1999).
[7] L. V. Hau et al., Nature (London) 397, 594 (1999); M. M.
Kash et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 5229 (1999); D. Budker
et al., ibid. 83, 1767 (1999).
[8] This “mean-ﬁeld model” is only qualitative. See M. Grossand S. Haroche, Phys. Rep. 93, 301 (1982).
[9] Because the line shape of the Bragg resonance for thecondensate atoms is not Lorentzian, the decay curve is notstrictly exponential.
[10] M. G. Moore and P. Meystre, Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 5202
(1999).
[11] S. Chu and S. Wong, Phys. Rev. Lett. 48, 738 (1982).
[12] L. Casperson and A. Yariv, Phys. Rev. Lett. 26, 293 (1971).
[13] J.-Y. Courtois et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 72, 3017 (1994).
[14] R. Bonifacio and L. De Salvo, Nucl. Instrum. Methods
Phys. Res., Sect. A 341, 360 (1994).
[15] G. L. Lippi et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 2452 (1996); P. R.
Hemmer et al., ibid. 77, 1468 (1996).
[16] W. J. Brown et al., Phys. Rev. A 55, R1601 (1997).
[17] M. G. Moore, and P. Meystre, Phys. Rev. A 59, R1754(1999); P. R. Berman, ibid. 59, 585 (1999).
[18] D. M. Stamper-Kurn et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 2876
(1999).

Appendix G

Does matter wave ampliﬁcation
work for fermions?
This appendix includes the following paper [21]: Wolfgang Ketterle and Shin Inouye, “Doesmatter wave ampliﬁcation work for fermions?” Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 4203 (2001).

116

VOLUME 86, NUMBER 19

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

7 MAY 2001

Does Matter Wave Ampliﬁcation Work for Fermions?
Wolfgang Ketterle and Shin Inouye
Department of Physics and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139(Received 16 August 2000)
We discuss the relationship between bosonic stimulation, density ﬂuctuations, and matter wave gratings. It is shown that enhanced stimulated scattering, matter wave ampliﬁcation, and atomic four-wave
mixing do not require macroscopic occupation of a single quantum state. These processes are in principle
possible for fermionic or nondegenerate samples, if they are prepared in a cooperative state. In practice,there are limitations due to short coherence times.
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.86.4203

Introduction.—The realization of Bose-Einstein condensation in atoms has made it possible to study thephenomenon of bosonic stimulation for massive particles.
Superradiance of atoms [1], four-wave mixing [2], andmatter wave ampliﬁcation [3,4] were described as processes which are bosonically stimulated, i.e., their rates
are proportional to 共N 1 1兲, where N is the number ofidentical bosons in the ﬁnal state. These experimental
achievements have raised the question of whether theseprocesses are inherently connected to bosonic systems.
We have recently pointed out that atomic superradiancedoes not depend on Bose-Einstein statistics and would occur for thermal atoms or even for fermions, although withmuch shorter coherence times [1], and similar arguments
should apply to four-wave mixing. These suggestions havestirred a controversy among researchers. This note willreconcile the different physical descriptions. The central
result is that the stimulated processes mentioned above do
not rely on quantum statistics, but rather on symmetry andcoherence.
In this note, we identify clearly the physical process
behind bosonically stimulated scattering. We show thatthe presence of a macroscopically occupied state increases
the density ﬂuctuations of the system, and bosonically enhanced scattering is simply the diffraction of particles fromthese density ﬂuctuations. The ﬁrst parts of this paper establish the equivalence of bosonically enhanced scattering,
diffraction, and superradiance, which will then be applied
to fermionic systems.
Scattering theory.— It is useful to summarize basic
aspects of the theory of scattering of light or particles
from an arbitrary system. These textbook results simply
follow from lowest order perturbation theory (Fermi’s
Golden Rule). The double differential cross section can bed2s
ds
decomposed into two factors dVdv 苷 共 dV 兲single S共q, v兲.
The ﬁrst one is the differential cross section for the
scattering by a single particle (e.g., the Rayleigh crosssection for far-off resonant light scattering), the second
one is the dynamic structure factor (van Hove or scattering function) S共q, v兲 which is the Fourier transformof the density-density correlation function: S共q, v兲 苷
0031-9007兾01兾86(19)兾4203(4)$15.00

PACS numbers: 03.75.Fi, 34.50.–s, 67.90. +z

R
共1兾2p兲 dt eivt 具r̂共q, t兲r̂ y 共q, 0兲典 where r̂共q兲 is theFourier transform of the particle density operator (see,e.g., [5]).
For a noninteracting system of bosons, S共q, v兲 can be
expressed using the single-particle states ji典 with energy
Ei and occupation numbers Ni :Xj具 jjeiqr ji典j2 Ni 共Nj 1 1兲
S共q, v兲 苷 S0 共q兲d共v兲 1iﬁj

3 d关v 2 共Ej 2 Ei 兲兾h̄兴 .

(1)

The factor 共Nj 1 1兲 reﬂects bosonic stimulation by theoccupation of the ﬁnal state. The elastic term S0 共q兲 describes coherent elastic scattering or diffraction and is simply the square of the Fouriertransform of the densityP
S0 共q兲 苷 j具r y 共q兲典j2 苷 j Ni 具ijeiqr ji典j2 .
A simple example.— It is instructive to apply thisformalism to a system of noninteracting bosons which
has macroscopic occupation in two momentum stateswith momentum 6h̄k. If the initial state is a Fock state
j1k典N1 j2k典N2 , we ﬁnd that, apart from forward scattering, the dominant term in S共q, v兲 is the bosonicallyenhanced scattering between those two (degenerate) states,
S共q, v兲 苷 关N 2 dq,0 1 N1 共N2 1 1兲dq,22k 1 N2 共N1 1
1兲dq,2k 兴d共v兲 where the Kronecker symbol dq,p impliesq 苷 p within the wave vector resolution 艐1兾L of a ﬁnite
volume with length L. Alternatively, we can assume theinitial state to be a coherent superposition state ji典N withthe eigenstate ji典 苷 c1 j1k典 1 c2 j2k典 and jc6 j2 苷N6 兾N and N 苷 N1 1 N2 . Now, the dominant contribution to S共q, v兲 comes from S0 共q兲 苷 N 2 dq,0 1
N 2 jc1 j2 jc2 j2 关dq,2k 1 dq,22k 兴 which is equivalent to theFock state case when the difference between N6 andN6 1 1 can be neglected in the limit of large occupation
numbers.
This equivalence between Fock states and coherent superposition states has been extensively discussed in thecontext of two interfering Bose-Einstein condensates [6–8]
and also with regard to optical coherences [9]. Those papers show that, in many situations, a Fock state is equivalent to an ensemble of coherent states with arbitrary phase.
© 2001 The American Physical Society

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PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

Experimental interrogation determines the phase and reduces the ensemble to a single coherent state with a phasewhich will vary from experiment to experiment. For large
occupation numbers, one can therefore regard the Fockstate as an initial state which has not yet “declared its
phase,” and, in many cases, for the convenience of calculations, replace the Fock state by a coherent superposition
state with an arbitrarily chosen phase.
However, on ﬁrst sight, the physical interpretation is different. In the Fock state formulation, the enhanced scattering results from a macroscopic occupation number ina single quantum state, whereas for the coherent superposition state, the scattering is simple diffraction by a sinusoidally modulated density distribution with an amplitude
proportional to Njc1 c2 j. This density modulation acts
as a diffraction grating for incident light or particles andhas a diffraction efﬁciency proportional to the square of
the amplitude. Such a density modulation does not require bosonic atoms. It can, for example, be imprinted into
thermal or fermionic clouds by subjecting them to a suitable optical standing wave. The equivalence of these two
descriptions points towards one of the major conclusionsof this paper, namely macroscopic population of bosonicstates is not necessary for enhanced scattering.
The previous discussion assumed scattering between
two degenerate momentum states j6k典. A simple Galileantransformation generalizes this to two arbitrary momentum states jk6 典 with energies E6 . Now the standing wave
moves with a velocity h̄共k1 1 k2 兲兾2m where m is themass of the atoms, and the enhanced scattering appears ath̄v 苷 6共E1 2 E2 兲 instead of at v 苷 0.
Enhancement of ﬂuctuations.— The general resultsof statistical physics presented above emphasize thatenhanced scattering must be related to enhanced density
ﬂuctuations. Therefore, bosonic enhancement of a scattering rate is either due to a density modulation 具r共q兲典 (inthe coherent superposition description) or due to density
ﬂuctuations (in the Fock state description)— the latter canbe regarded as a density modulation with an unknown
phase. This relation allows a more intuitive answer to thequestion of why there is bosonic enhancement when two
atoms 1 and 2 collide in the presence of a condensate with
N0 atoms. The standard answer would be that the symmetry of the wave function enhances the scattering rate
into the condensate and into some other state 3 by a factorof 共N0 1 1兲. An equivalent answer is that the condensate
interferes with atom 2 (or 1) and creates a density grating
1兾2
with an amplitude proportional to N0 , which diffracts
atom 1 (or 2) into state 3. The grating absorbs this momentum transfer by transferring the atom in state 2 (or 1)
into the condensate. Therefore, bosonic stimulation can be
regarded as heterodyne ampliﬁcation of density ﬂuctuations where the condensate acts as the local oscillator.
Dicke superradiance.—We now want to establish theconnection between bosonic enhancement and Dicke
superradiance. This will formally introduce the enhance4204

7 MAY 2001

ment factor 共N 1 1兲 for nonbosonic systems. A system of
N atoms in two states j6典 is conveniently described withthe formalism introduced by Dicke to discuss superradiance in two-level atoms [10]. It should be emphasized thatthe only assumption in this treatment is that the N atoms
couple identically to the probe ﬁeld (the electromagnetic
ﬁeld or some incident particle beam), i.e., that they havethe same transition frequency and matrix element without
any assumption of quantum statistics. For example, inmagnetic resonance experiments, the Dicke treatment
would apply to different atomic species with the samevalue of the magnetic moment.
Dicke regarded the two-level atom as a spin 1兾2 system and introduced angular momentum quantum numbers. In this subspace, a fully symmetric state of N atoms
has spin s 苷 N兾2 and magnetic quantum number m 苷
共N1 2 N2 兲兾2. The squared matrix element for the transition js, m 6 1典 ! js, m典 induced by the ladder operator
S7 is 共s 6 m 1 1兲 共s 7 m兲. Expressing this by initial occupation numbers N6 , one obtains N6 共N7 1 1兲 [11–13],
retrieving the formula of bosonic enhancement. For agiven N and m, the transition rates are largest for the statewith s 苷 N兾2 which is therefore called the state of maximum cooperativity.
Such a system will couple to the probe ﬁeld in a superradiant way (i.e., with an up to N times enhanced transitionrate). In the Bloch vector picture, its dynamics is describedas the precession of a macroscopic spin vector with lengths 苷 N兾2. This spin vector decays in a time 1兾G where G
is the total (homogeneous and inhomogeneous) linewidthof the transition j1典 ! j2典. Collective superradiant behavior can be observed only at times shorter than 1兾G.
Matter wave gratings and fermions.— Dicke’s formalism is usually applied to one-photon transitions between
internal states, but here we use it to discuss scattering,i.e., a two-photon transition between two momentum states
jk6 典. Let us ﬁrst assume that we have an ideal BoseEinstein condensate in the k 苷 0 momentum state. Light
scattering between momentum states k 苷 0 and k 苷 q has
an inﬁnite coherence time for a noninteracting condensate
of inﬁnite size (Fig. 1a). For a thermal (nondegenerate)
cloud of atoms with thermal momentum spread h̄kth øh̄q the transition frequencies for the transfer of momentumh̄q are Doppler broadened by G 苷 h̄kth q兾m. For times
shorter than 1兾G the system will behave collectively likethe Bose condensed system, i.e., a probe beam would induce transitions between the k 苷 0 and k 苷 q momentum states at a rate proportional to Nk苷0 共Nk苷q 1 1兲 whereNk苷0,q refers to the total number of atoms in states with
momentum around k 苷 0, q.
Once we have distributed the particles over many initialstates, indistinguishability and quantum statistics do notplay any role. Therefore, the only modiﬁcation for a Fermi
degenerate cloud is to replace kth with the Fermi wave vector kF in the expression for the inhomogeneous broadening(Fig. 1b). Because of the assumption h̄kF ø h̄q, PauliVOLUME 86, NUMBER 19

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

(a)
k

(b)

(c)

x

k

q

z
k

F

FIG. 1. Momentum transfer q៬ (a) to a Bose-Einstein condensate, (b) to a Fermi sea, and (c) to a momentum squeezed degenerate Fermi cloud. Shown are the populated states vs the kvector. The momentum spread kF of the Fermi sea introduces
Doppler broadening of the transition and a ﬁnite coherence time,
whereas the coherence times in (a) and (c) are much longer due
to small momentum spreads in the z direction and could in principle be inﬁnite.

blocking due to scattering into already occupied states isabsent. If this assumption is not made, a part of the cloud
becomes inactive, and our discussion would apply only tothe atoms near the Fermi surface.
The previous paragraph generalized the bosonic Fockstate ensemble to nondegenerate and fermionic clouds. We
now come back to the coherent superposition state. For
bosons, it can be produced from a Bose-Einstein condensate in the k៬ 苷 0៬ state by applying a (so-called Bragg)
pulse of two laser beams which differ in wave vector by q៬
and in frequency by the recoil frequency h̄q2 兾2m. Thosebeams resonantly drive the transition between momentum
states k៬ 苷 0៬ and k៬ 苷 q៬ [14,15] and prepare the superposition state discussed above. Similarly, in a thermal (orfermionic) cloud, the Bragg pulse creates a modulated density distribution with wavelength 2p兾q which has the same
contrast as in the bosonic case and will diffract light or
atoms at the same rate. However, due to the thermal motion with velocity h̄kth 兾m, this grating decays during atime m兾h̄kth q 苷 1兾G (for the fermionic case, kF has tobe substituted for kth 兲 . Thus the Dicke picture and thediffraction picture agree.
Coherence time.— The Doppler broadening discussed
above seems to imply a fundamental limit to the coherencetime of a Fermi system. However, at least in principle,
one can prepare a Fermi system with inﬁnite coherencetime by starting out with a cloud which is in a single
momentum state along the ẑ axis, but occupies many
momentum states along x̂ and ŷ. With a Bragg pulse transferring momentum qẑ, one can prepare a system whichshows collective behavior for scattering particles or lightwith momentum transfer qẑ with an inﬁnite coherencetime (Fig. 1c). Therefore, there is no direct connection
between a long coherence time and a high phase-spacedensity. In this ensemble, the scattering is between
the states jkz 苷 0典 ≠ jkx , ky 典 and jkz 苷 q典 ≠ jkx , ky 典.
Therefore, we have enhanced scattering into the jkz 苷 q典
quantum state, but the atoms may differ in other quantum
numbers. What matters is only the symmetrization of the
many-body wave function along ẑ. The other quantum

7 MAY 2001

numbers ensure that there is no conﬂict with the Pauliblocking for fermionic systems. This is analogous to theseparation of electronic wave functions into a symmetricpart (e.g., the spin part) and an antisymmetric part (e.g.
the spatial part) where the coupling to an external ﬁeld
(e.g., electron spin resonance experiment) depends only
on the symmetric part.
Experiments.— The experiments both on superradiance[1] and four-wave mixing [2] in Bose-Einstein condensates
have in common that a matter wave grating formed by two
macroscopically occupied momentum states is probed, either by light or by atoms. Both experiments create the coherent superposition state discussed above using a Bragg
pulse. In the limit of low intensity of the probe beam, thescattering is independent of the nature of the probe particles — one could have used any kind of radiation, bosons
or fermions [16]. The bosonic stimulation observed in bothexperiments demonstrates the dynamic nature of the matterwave grating. Each time a particle or photon is diffracted,
the amplitude of the grating grows.
In practice, it is difﬁcult or impossible to carry out theseexperiments with fermions or thermal atoms. When we
observed superradiance of a condensate, we could not observe similar behavior above the BEC transition temperature since the threshold laser intensity for superradiant gain
is several orders of magnitude higher (see Ref. [1] for details). Furthermore, the superradiance may be suppressedby heating or other decoherence processes. The shorter coherence time for non-BEC samples should be even morecrucial for the four-wave mixing experiment where thematter wave grating is probed by very slow atoms whichhave a long transit time of about 1 ms through the sample.
Another concern is incoherent scattering of the probe particles which accompany the stimulated processes discussed
so far. Since the incoherent processes scale linearly with
the number of atoms, whereas the stimulated process is
proportional to N 2 , there is in principle always a regime
where the stimulated process dominates [17].
Discussion.— Coming back to the initial question: Is
matter wave ampliﬁcation possible for fermions? The answer is yes, if the system is prepared in a cooperative state
and the ampliﬁcation occurs in a time shorter than the coherence time. However, this ampliﬁcation does not pile up
atoms in a single quantum state, but rather in states which
are in the same (or approximately the same) momentum
state along ẑ, but differ in other quantum numbers. Therefore, this ampliﬁcation can be regarded as ampliﬁcation ofa density modulation or as ampliﬁcation of spatial bunching of atoms. Alternatively, one can regard the density
modulation as a collective excitation of the system which
involves bosonic quasiparticles (e.g., phonons). Superradiance and four-wave mixing (both with bosons and fermions) can then be ascribed to bosonic stimulation by thosequasiparticles.
The phase-coherent matter wave ampliﬁcation for fermions would start with a short Bragg pulse which puts
4205

VOLUME 86, NUMBER 19

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

some of the atoms into a recoil state which is then ampliﬁed. This superposition of two momentum states creates amatter wave grating. This can be regarded as the interference pattern of each atom with itself with all the individualinterference patterns being exactly in phase. Matter wave
ampliﬁcation occurs when a single laser beam is diffracted
off this grating, increasing the amplitude of each atom to
be in the recoiling state. Therefore, the matter wave ampliﬁcation scheme of Refs. [3,4] would work for fermions,provided the whole process can be done in the short coherence time of the fermionic matter wave grating.
Of course, there is a fundamental difference between
bosons and fermions which is reﬂected in the symmetryof the total wave function. A bosonic system with two
macroscopically occupied quantum states is always in a
fully symmetric and maximally cooperative state. In otherwords, if two independent Bose condensates cross eachother, there is always a macroscopic interference pattern(as observed experimentally [18]), which is reﬂected in
S共q, v兲 being proportional to N 2 (or to N1 N2 , to be more
precise). It is this density modulation which can be ampliﬁed by the dynamic diffraction discussed in this paper.
If two beams of fermions overlap, there is no macroscopic
interference, unless the two beams were prepared in a symmetric way, e.g., by generating one of the beams by a
Bragg pulse from the other one.
Our discussion of scattering without change of the internal state can be generalized. For example, if atoms scatter
into the condensate through a spinﬂip process, the density grating has to be replaced by a polarization or coherence grating. Such gratings were experimentally studied
for laser-cooled atoms in Ref. [19].
This paper has focused on bosonically enhanced scattering. Similarly, bosonic enhancement of spontaneousemission can be equally well described by a cooperative
initial state without invoking quantum statistics. For scattering, the relevant coupling strength is density ﬂuctuation.
For spontaneous emission, it is the electric dipole moment.
Both are enhanced by the presence of a Bose condensate,in the latter case because the excited atom corresponds to a
Dicke vector of spin s 苷 N兾2, m 苷 2N兾2 1 1兾2 which
couples more strongly to the vacuum ﬂuctuations of theelectromagnetic ﬁeld than an individual atom.
In conclusion, we have shown that bosonically enhanced
scattering is related to density ﬂuctuations and matterwave gratings. The analogy with Dicke superradianceemphasizes that matter wave ampliﬁcation and atomic

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7 MAY 2001

four-wave mixing are possible for fermionic or nondegenerate samples if they are prepared in a cooperative state
which shows coherent and collective behavior.
We are grateful to A. Aspect, C. Cohen-Tannoudji,
S. Haroche, K. Helmerson, D. Kleppner, P. Meystre,
W. D. Phillips, D. E. Pritchard, S. Rolston, M. O. Scully,
D. Snoke, D. M. Stamper-Kurn, and E. Wright for helpful
discussion, and to A. Görlitz, C. Raman, A. P. Chikkatur,and S. Gupta for valuable comments on the manuscript.
This work was supported by NSF, ONR, ARO, NASA,and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
Note added.— After submission of this paper we learnedof similar work by Moore and Meystre [20] which agrees
with our conclusions.

[1] S. Inouye et al., Science 285, 571 (1999).
[2] L. Deng et al., Nature (London) 398, 218 (1999).
[3] S. Inouye et al., Nature (London) 402, 641 (1999).
[4] M. Kozuma et al., Science 286, 2309 (1999).
[5] A. Grifﬁn, Excitations in a Bose-Condensed Liquid (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993).
[6] J. Javanainen and S. M. Yoo, Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 161(1996).
[7] M. Naraschewski et al., Phys. Rev. A 54, 2185 (1996).
[8] Y. Castin and J. Dalibard, Phys. Rev. A 55, 4330 (1997).
[9] K. Mølmer, Phys. Rev. A 55, 3195 (1997).
[10] R. H. Dicke, Phys. Rev. 93, 99 (1954).
[11] M. Sargent III, M. O. Scully, and W. E. Lamb, Jr., Laser
Physics (Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1974).
[12] J. J. Sakurai, Modern Quantum Mechanics (AddisonWesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1994).
[13] H. Wallis, Appl. Phys. B 65, 707 (1997).
[14] M. Kozuma et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 871 (1999).
[15] J. Stenger et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 4569 (1999).
[16] P. Villain et al., cond-mat/0005417.
[17] In the case of a fermionic sample, the density of particles
can be increased only by increasing the momentum spreadof the sample. This can increase the incoherent “background” for four-wave mixing. For the ensemble in Fig. 1c,an increase in N at constant volume requires the transverse
velocity spread to increase as N 1兾2 . Therefore, for large
N, the incoherent elastic scattering rate increases as N 3兾2 ,still slower than the stimulated scattering.
[18] M. R. Andrews et al., Science 275, 637 (1997).
[19] A. Kumarakrishnan, S. B. Cahn, U. Shim, and T. Sleator,
Phys. Rev. A 58, R3387 (1998).
[20] M. G. Moore and P. Meystre, preceding Letter, Phys. Rev.
Lett. 86, 4199 (2001).

Appendix H

Observation of vortex phasesingularities in Bose-Einsteincondensates
This appendix includes the following preprint [24]: S. Inouye, S. Gupta, T. Rosenband,
A.P. Chikkatur, A. Görlitz, T.L. Gustavson, A.E. Leanhardt, D.E. Pritchard, and W.
Ketterle, “Observation of vortex phase singularities in Bose-Einstein condensates,” condmat/0104444 (2001).

121

Observation of vortex phase singularities in Bose-Einstein condensates
S. Inouye, S. Gupta, T. Rosenband, A.P. Chikkatur,
A. Görlitz, T.L. Gustavson, A.E. Leanhardt, D.E. Pritchard, and W. KetterlearXiv:cond-mat/0104444 23 Apr 2001

Department of Physics, Research Laboratory of Electronics, and MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA(April 23, 2001)
We have observed phase singularities due to vortex excitation in Bose-Einstein condensates. Vortices
were created by moving a laser beam through a condensate. They were observed as dislocationsin the interference fringes formed by the stirred condensate and a second unperturbed condensate.
The velocity dependence for vortex excitation and the time scale for re-establishing a uniform phaseacross the condensate were determined.

Vortex core

Quantized vortices play a key role in the dynamics
of superﬂuid ﬂow [1]. The nucleation of vortices determines the critical velocity for the onset of dissipation atzero temperature. In liquid helium, vortices are a sourceof friction between the normal ﬂuid and the superﬂuid.
Multiple interacting vortices can form a lattice or vortex
tangle, depending on their geometry and charge.
Bose-Einstein condensates of dilute atomic gases oﬀer
a unique opportunity to study quantum hydrodynamics.
The low density of the gas allows direct comparison withﬁrst principle theories. A condensate ischaracterized byρ(r) exp(iφ(r)),a macroscopic wavefunction ψ(r) =which satisﬁes a non-linear Schrödinger equation. The
density ρ(r) and the velocity ﬁeld vs (r) in the hydrodynamic equations can now be replaced by the square of
the wavefunction (ρ(r) = |ψ(r)|2 ) and the gradient of
the phase of the wavefunction
vs (r) =h̄
∇φ(r),
m

(a)

A

(b)

Flow

D

C
B

FIG. 1.
Density (a) and phase (b) proﬁle of a moving
condensate with singly-charged (n = 1) vortex. The density proﬁle shows the vortex core, whereas the phase pattern
features a fork-like dislocation at the position of the vortex.
Interference between two initially separated, freely expanding
condensates produces exactly the same pattern as shown in(b), if one of the condensate contains a vortex.

The line integral of Eq. (1) around a closed path gives
the quantization of circulation:h̄(φ(rf ) − φ(ri )) .
(2)
v (r) · dr =m(1)

If the path is singly connected, there is no circulation.
If the path is multiply connected (like around a vortexcore) the circulation can take values nh/m (integer multiples of h/m), since the phase is only deﬁned modulo 2π.
As a result, the phase accumulated between two points
A and B can be diﬀerent depending on the path (Fig. 1).
The integer quantum number n is called the charge ofthe vortex. When the phase gradient is integrated along
a path to the left of the vortex (path ACB), the accumulated phase diﬀers by 2nπ from the path to the right(ADB).
This phase diﬀerence can be visualized with interferometric techniques. When two condensates with relative
velocity v overlap, the total density shows straight interference fringes with a periodicity h/mv. If one of thecondensates contains a vortex of charge n, there are n
more fringes on one side of the singularity than on theother side (Fig. 1b). The change in the fringe spacing
reﬂects the velocity ﬁeld of the vortex. An observationof this fork-like dislocation in the interference fringes isa clear signature of a vortex [11].

where m is the mass of the particle.
Recently, vortices in a Bose-Einstein condensate havebeen realized experimentally and are currently under intensive study [2–5]. In most of this work, vortices wereidentiﬁed by observing the density depletion at the cores.
The velocity ﬁeld was inferred only indirectly, with the
exception of the work on circulation in a two-component
condensate [2]. The ﬂow ﬁeld of a vortex can be directly
observed when the phase of the macroscopic wavefunction is measured using interferometric techniques. In thiswork, we created one or several vortices in one condensate and imaged its phase by interfering it with a second
unperturbed condensate which served as a local oscillator.
Interferometric techniques have previously been applied either to simple geometries such as trapped or freely
expanding condensates [6–8], or to read out a phase imprinted by rf- or optical ﬁelds [2,9,10]. Here we apply aninterferometric technique to visualize turbulent ﬂow.

1

tuned to the F = 2 to F  = 3 cycling transition.
Obtaining high contrast interference fringes (∼ 70%)
across the whole cloud required attention to several key
factors. First, standard absorption imaging integrates
along the line of sight, which was vertical in our experiment. Any bending or distortions of the interference
fringes along the direction of observation would resultin a loss of contrast. This was avoided by restricting
the absorption of the probe light to a thin horizontal
slice. The optical pumping beam was focused into a lightsheet of adjustable thickness (typically 100 µm, which isabout 10% of the diameter of the cloud after the timeof-ﬂight) and a width of a few millimeters. This pumping beam propagated perpendicularly to the probe lightand parallel to the long axis of the trap. Second, thenumber of atoms in the condensates had to be reduced
to about 1 × 106 (corresponding to a chemical potentialµ ∼ 2.5 kHz). Higher numbers of atoms resulted in a severe loss of contrast, even if we detuned the probe beam
to reduce optical density. We suspect that at high density, the two condensates do not simply interpenetrate
and interfere, but interact and collide. Third, high spatial homogeneity of the probe beam was important toobtain absorption images with low technical noise. In
some of our experiments, the probe beam position was
actively scanned to smooth the beam proﬁle. Fourth,the intensity of the sweeping blue-detuned beam was adjusted so that the height of the optical potential was afraction (typically one half) of the chemical potential of
the condensate. Higher intensity of the sweeping beam
resulted in reduced interference fringe contrast, probably
due to other forms of excitations.
Images of interfering condensates show a qualitative
diﬀerence between stirred (Fig. 3(b-d)) and unperturbed
states (Fig. 3(a)). Fork-like structures in the fringes were
often observed for stirred condensates, whereas unperturbed condensates always showed straight fringes. The
charge of the vortices can be determined from the forklike pattern. In Fig. 3(b), vortices were excited in thecondensate on top, and the higher number of fringes on
the left side indicates higher relative velocity on this side,corresponding to counterclockwise ﬂow. Fig. 3(c) showsa vortex of opposite charge. The double fork observed inFig. 3(d) represents the phase pattern of a vortex pair.
Multiply charged vortices, which are unstable against the
break-up into singly charged vortices, were not observed.

Our setup for the interferometric observation of vortices is essentially a combination of two experiments conducted in our lab in the past [6,12]. Brieﬂy, laser cooled
sodium atoms were loaded into a double-well potential
and further cooled by rf-induced evaporation below the
BEC transition temperature. The double-well potential
was created by adding a potential hill at the center of acigar-shaped magnetic trap. For this, blue-detuned far
oﬀ-resonant laser light (532 nm) was focused to form an
elliptical 75 µm × 12 µm (FWHM) light sheet and wasaligned to the center of the magnetic trap with the longaxis of the sheet perpendicular to the long axis of thecondensate. The condensates produced in each well weretypically 20 µm in diameter and 100 µm in length. The
height of the optical potential was ∼ 3 kHz, which wasslightly larger than the chemical potential of the condensate. A more intense light sheet would have increased
the distance between the condensates, thus reduced thefringe spacing [6].
After two condensates each containing ∼ 1×106 atoms
in the F = 1, mF = −1 state were formed in the doublewell potential, we swept a second blue-detuned laser
beam through one of the condensates using an acoustooptical deﬂector (Fig. 2). The focal size of the sweeping
laser beam (12 µm × 12 µm, FWHM) was close to thewidth of the condensate. The alignment of this beam
was therefore done using an expanded condensate in aweaker trap where the beam proﬁle created a circular“hole” in the condensate density distribution.
(a)

(b)

FIG. 2. Schematic (a) and phase-contrast images (b) of
the condensates used for the experiment. A blue-detuned
laser beam (not shown in the ﬁgure) was focused into a lightsheet separating the two condensates in the magnetic trap.
Another tightly focused laser beam was swept through oneof the condensates (the upper one in image (b)) to excite
vortices. The intensity of each laser beam was a factor offour higher than in the experiments to enhance the depleted
regions in the images. The images in (b) have a ﬁeld of viewof 100 µm × 380 µm. For each image, the stirrer was advanced
from left to right by 5 µm.

After sweeping the beam once across the “sample” condensate, the magnetic and optical ﬁelds were switched oﬀ
and the two condensates expanded and overlapped during 41 ms time-of-ﬂight. The atoms were then optically
pumped into the F = 2 hyperﬁne ground state for 80 µs
and subsequently probed for 20 µs by absorption imaging

2the condensate [15]. The direct observation of vortices atsimilar Mach numbers (Fig. 3) provides strong evidence
that vortices play a major role in the onset of dissipation
at the critical velocity.
By varying the speed of the laser beam sweep, we determined the velocity dependence of the vortex nucleation process. Due to the turbulent nature of the ﬂow,
every image was diﬀerent even if they were taken under the same experimental conditions. Thus the images
were classiﬁed by counting the number of vortices andthe fractions were plotted versus the speed of the sweep(Fig. 4). The classiﬁcation was done after putting images
in random order to eliminate a possible “psychologicalbias.” The plot suggests that the nucleation of vortices
requires a velocity of ∼ 0.5 µm/ms, corresponding to a
Mach number vc /cs ∼ 0.08, consistent with our previous
measurement [14]. However, a direct comparison is notpossible due to diﬀerent geometries—in the present experiment, the stirrer was swept along the radial directionof the condensate and almost cut the cloud completely,
whereas in the previous experiment, the stirrer moved
along the axial direction of an expanded condensate.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

1.0
Fraction of images

No vortex(d1)

1 vortex
0.5_ 2 vortices
>

(d2)
0.0

FIG. 3.
Observation of the phase singularities of vortices created by sweeping a laser beam through a condensate.
Without the sweep, straight fringes of ∼ 20 µm spacings wereobserved (a), while after the sweep, fork-like dislocations appeared (b-d). The speed of the sweep was 1.1 µm/ms, corresponding to a Mach number of ∼ 0.18. The ﬁeld of view of
each image is 1.1 mm × 0.38 mm. Fig. (d) shows a pair of dislocations with opposite circulation characteristic of a vortex
pair. At the bottom, magniﬁed images of the fork-like structures are shown (d1) with lines to guide the eye (d2). The
orientation of the condensates is the same as in Fig. 2(b).

01Scan speed [µm/ms]

2

FIG. 4. Velocity dependence of vortex excitation. The
fraction of images with zero (solid line), one (dashed line),
and two or more vortices (dash-dotted line) are plotted versus
the speed of the sweep. After the sweep, the atoms werereleased from the trap without delay. The total number of
evaluated images was 50. Ambiguous low contrast images
were excluded; therefore, the sum of the fractions is less thanone.

Theoretical studies of the superﬂuid ﬂow around moving objects predict dissipationless ﬂow below a criticalvelocity [1]. Above this velocity, vortices of opposite circulation are created on the two sides of the moving object
and give rise to a drag force [13]. A recent experimentin our group found the onset of dissipation at a critical
Mach number of vc /cs ∼ 0.1 [14]. Dissipation at low velocities can not only occur by vortex shedding, but also
by the creation of phonons in the low density regions ofPrevious experiments have dramatically demonstrated
the robustness of the long-range coherence of the condensate [6,9]. The interferometric technique used here isa sensitive way to assess whether a condensate has theassumed ground state wave function which is characterized by a uniform phase. Sweeping through the condensate excites turbulent ﬂow. By delaying the release of theatoms from the trap by a variable amount of time, we canstudy the relaxation of the condensate towards its ground3

illustrated by this work where an atomic physics technique, matter wave interferometry, was used to probe thenucleation of vortices, a problem of many-body physics.
There are many issues of vortex physics which remain
unexplored, including vortices in two-dimensional condensates (condensates in lower dimensions were recently
realized in our laboratory [18]), pinning of vortices by additional laser beams, and interactions between vortices.
This work was supported by NSF, the ONR, ARO,
NASA, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
A.E.L. and A.P.C. acknowledge additional support by
fellowships from NSF, and JSEP, respectively.

state. Fig. 5 shows that the condensate completely recovers its uniform phase after 50 − 100 ms. Vortices havedisappeared after ∼ 30 ms. Of course, these measurements depend crucially on the speciﬁc geometry of thecloud, but they do indicate typical time scales. The sensitivity of this method was illustrated by the following
observation: in a weaker trap, we saw an oscillation intime between images with straight high contrast fringes
and images with low contrast fringes. This was probably
due to the excitation of a sloshing motion along the weakaxis of the condensate.

Fraction of images

1.0

No vortex[1] R.J. Donnelly, Quantized Vortices in Helium II (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 1991); P.
Nozieres and D. Pines, The Theory of Quantum Liquids(Addison-Wesley, Redwood City, CA, 1990).
[2] M.R. Matthews et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 2498 (1999).
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[5] J.R. Abo-Shaeer, C. Raman, J.M. Vogels, and W. Ketterle, Science, in press.
[6] M.R. Andrews et al., Science 275, 637 (1997).
[7] J.E. Simsarian et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 2040 (2000).
[8] I. Bloch and T. W. Hänsch and T. Esslinger, Nature 403,
166 (2000).
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[10] J. Denschlag et al., Science 287, 97 (2000).
[11] M.R. Andrews, Ph.D. Thesis (MIT, Cambridge, MA,
1998); E.L. Bolda and D.F. Walls, Phys. Rev. Lett. 81,
5477 (1998); J. Tempere and J.T. Devreese, Solid State
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69, 1644 (1992); T. Winiecki, J.F. McCann, and C.S.
Adams, Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 5186 (1999). See C. Raman, R. Onofrio, J.M. Vogels, J.R. Abo-Shaeer, and W.
Ketterle, J. Low Temp. Phys. 122, 99 (2001) for further
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[16] L. Dobrek et al., Phys. Rev. A, 60, R3381 (1999).
[17] J. Dalibard, private communication.
[18] A. Görlitz et al., to be published.

0.5
Low
contrast
1 vortex
0.0
050
Wait time [ms]100FIG. 5.
Relaxation of a condensate towards uniform
phase. The fraction of images with zero (thick solid line) andone (dashed line) vortex and with low contrast (thin solidline) are plotted versus the waiting time after the laser beam
sweep (v/cs ∼ 0.09). The total number of images used for
creating this plot was 33.

For interferometric detection of vortices, two diﬀerent
techniques have been discussed. The one employed here
uses a separate condensate as a local oscillator. The otheralternative is to split, shift and recombine a single condensate with vortices. In this case, the interference pattern is more complicated because all singularities and distortions appear twice. The simulations in Ref. [16] showthat the self-interference technique produces more complicated fringe patterns. After completion of this work,
we learned that this second technique was used in ENS,
Paris to observe the phase pattern of a single vortex [17].
In conclusion, we have studied vortex excitation in
Bose-Einstein condensates using an interferometric technique. This technique is suited for the study of complicated superﬂuid ﬂows, e.g., when multiple vortices with
opposite charges are present. We have obtained a clear
visualization of vortices as topological singularities, conﬁrmed the role of vortices in the onset of dissipation near
the critical velocity, and observed the relaxation of astirred condensate towards a state with uniform phase.
The ﬁeld of Bose-Einstein condensation combines
atomic and condensed matter physics. This aspect is4

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