Probing Pair-Correlated Fermionic Atoms through Correlations in Atom Shot Noise

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how atom shot noise and time-of-flight imaging can detect and observe pair correlations in fermionic atoms created near a Feshbach resonance, revealing their momentum-space correlations.

Contribution

It introduces a method to detect and analyze pair correlations in fermionic atoms via shot noise and momentum-space imaging, advancing experimental techniques in quantum many-body physics.

Findings

Correlations between atoms in different spin states can be detected through shot noise.

Atom pair correlations in momentum space have been observed.

The method provides a new way to study fermionic pairing phenomena.

Abstract

Pair-correlated fermionic atoms are created through dissociation of weakly bound molecules near a magnetic-field Feshbach resonance. We show that correlations between atoms in different spin states can be detected using the atom shot noise in absorption images. Furthermore, using time-of-Flight imaging we have observed atom pair correlations in momentum space.