Coherently Scattering Atoms from an Excited Bose-Einstein Condensate

TL;DR

This paper investigates atom scattering from a Bose-Einstein condensate, revealing how vortices influence scattering patterns through an Aharonov-Bohm effect, offering a new method to detect vortices experimentally.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analogy between atom scattering in BECs and Andreev reflection, analyzing the impact of vortices on scattering wave functions and proposing a new vortex detection technique.

Findings

Vortices cause a qualitative change in scattering wave functions.

The effect is explained as an Aharonov-Bohm phenomenon.

Potential for experimental vortex detection.

Abstract

We consider scattering atoms from a fully Bose-Einstein condensed gas. If we take these atoms to be identical to those in the Bose-Einstein condensate, this scattering process is to a large extent analogous to Andreev reflection from the interface between a superconducting and a normal metal. We determine the scattering wave function both in the absence and the presence of a vortex. Our results show a qualitative difference between these two cases that can be understood as due to an Aharonov-Bohm effect. It leads to the possibility to experimentally detect and study vortices in this way.