A multibeam atom laser: coherent atom beam splitting from a single far detuned laser

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a novel multibeam atom laser created by splitting a single atom laser into multiple coherent beams using a simplified Bragg diffraction process driven by Raman lasers, advancing atomic interferometry.

Contribution

It introduces a new, simpler method for splitting atom lasers into multiple coherent beams using independent Raman laser-driven Bragg diffraction.

Findings

Successfully split a single atom laser into up to five beams

Achieved nearly co-propagating coherent atomic beams

Presented a novel, simplified atomic beam splitter implementation

Abstract

We report the experimental realisation of a multibeam atom laser. A single continuous atom laser is outcoupled from a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) via an optical Raman transition. The atom laser is subsequently split into up to five atomic beams with slightly different momenta, resulting in multiple, nearly co-propagating, coherent beams which could be of use in interferometric experiments. The splitting process itself is a novel realization of Bragg diffraction, driven by each of the optical Raman laser beams independently. This presents a significantly simpler implementation of an atomic beam splitter, one of the main elements of coherent atom optics.