Near Resonant Spatial Images of Confined Bose-Einstein Condensates in the '4D' Magnetic Bottle
arXiv:cond-mat/9804278 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.58.R54
Abstract
We present quantitative measurements of the spatial density profile of Bose-Einstein condensates of sodium atoms confined in a new '4D' magnetic bottle. The condensates are imaged in transmission with near resonant laser light. We demonstrate that the Thomas-Fermi surface of a condensate can be determined to better than 1%. More generally, we obtain excellent agreement with mean-field theory. We conclude that precision measurements of atomic scattering lengths and interactions between phase separated cold atoms in a harmonic trap can be measured with high precision using this method.
15 pages, 3 figures. Submitted 10/30/97, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. A Rapid Comm