Realization of a distributed Bragg reflector for propagating guided matter waves

TL;DR

This paper reports the experimental creation of a Bragg reflector for guided matter waves using a Bose-Einstein condensate and optical lattice, advancing integrated atom optics for continuous matter wave manipulation.

Contribution

It demonstrates the realization of a Bragg reflector for guided matter waves and analyzes the effects of the optical lattice's Gaussian envelope on scattering dynamics.

Findings

Successful experimental realization of a matter wave Bragg reflector.

Observation of Bragg cavity effects due to the lattice envelope.

Comparison of experimental results with one-dimensional models.

Abstract

We report on the experimental realization of a Bragg reflector for guided matter waves. A Bose-Einstein condensate with controlled velocity distribution impinges onto an attractive optical lattice of finite length and directly probes its band structure. We study the dynamics of the scattering by this potential and compare the results with simple one-dimensional models. We emphasize the importance of taking into account the gaussian envelope of the optical lattice which gives rise to Bragg cavity effects. Our results are a further step towards integrated atom optics setups for quasi-cw matter waves.