Enhanced backscattering of a dilute Bose-Einstein condensate

Abstract

We study experimentally and numerically the quasi-bidimensional transport of a $^{87}$Rb Bose-Einstein condensate launched with a velocity $v_0$ inside a disordered optical potential created by a speckle pattern. A time-of-flight analysis reveals a pronounced enhanced density peak in the backscattering direction $-v_0$, a feature reminiscent of coherent backscattering. Detailed numerical simulations indicate however that other effects also contribute to this enhancement, including a "backscattering echo" due to the position-momentum correlations of the initial wave packet.

5 pages, 4 figures