Abstract
We study experimentally and theoretically a beam splitter setup for guided atomic matter waves. The matter wave is a guided atom laser that can be tuned from quasimonomode to a regime where many transverse modes are populated, and propagates in a horizontal dipole beam until it crosses another horizontal beam at 45°. We show that depending on the parameters of this configuration, the atoms can all end up in one of the two beams (the system behaves as a perfect guide switch), or be split between the four available channels (the system behaves as a beam splitter). The splitting regime results from a chaotic scattering dynamics. The existence of these different regimes turns out to be robust against small variations of the parameters of the system. From numerical studies, we also propose a scheme that provides a robust and controlled beam splitter in two channels only.
- Received 5 March 2012
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.030403
© 2012 American Physical Society
Synopsis
Splitting Matter Waves with Light
Published 19 July 2012
A new design for a matter-beam splitter uses crossed lasers to make a “fork in the road” for traveling matter waves.
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