Raman scattering of atoms from a quasi-condensate in a perturbative regime

TL;DR

This paper shows how Raman scattering measurements of atoms from a quasi-condensate can reveal the temperature and phase fluctuations of the original cloud, aiding future experimental design.

Contribution

It introduces a method to infer the temperature of a quasi-condensate through analysis of scattered atom correlations in a Raman process.

Findings

Widths of density and correlation functions depend on temperature.

These widths evolve during atomic cloud expansion.

Results inform spatial resolution requirements for experiments.

Abstract

It is demonstrated that measurements of positions of atoms scattered from a quasi-condensate in a Raman process provide information on the temperature of the parent cloud. In particular, the widths of the density and second order correlation functions are sensitive to the phase fluctuations induced by non-zero temperature of the quasi-condensate. It is also shown how these widths evolve during expansion of the cloud of scattered atoms. These results are useful for planning future Raman scattering experiments and indicate the degree of spatial resolution of atom-position measurements necessary to detect the temperature dependence of the quasi-condensate.