Tunable source of correlated atom beams

Marie Bonneau (1) , Josselin Ruaudel (1) , Raphaël Lopes (1) , Jean-Christophe Jaskula (1) , Alain Aspect (1) , Denis Boiron (1) , Christoph I Westbrook (1)

1 Laboratoire Charles Fabry / Optique atomique

We use a one-dimensional optical lattice to modify the dispersion relation of atomic matter waves. Four-wave mixing in this situation produces atom pairs in two well defined beams. We show that these beams present a narrow momentum correlation, that their momenta are precisely tunable, and that this pair source can be operated both in the regime of low mode occupancy and of high mode occupancy.

Keywords: Four wave mixing of matter waves; Atom optics; Optical lattices

Domains: Physics [physics]; Quantum Physics [quant-ph]; Physics [physics]; Physics [physics]; Optics [physics.optics]

Marie Bonneau, Josselin Ruaudel, Raphaël Lopes, Jean-Christophe Jaskula, Alain Aspect, et al.. Tunable source of correlated atom beams. Physical Review A : Atomic, molecular, and optical physics, 2013, 87 (6), pp.061603(R). ⟨10.1103/PhysRevA.87.061603⟩. ⟨hal-00768915v2⟩