Single-atom aided probe of the decoherence of a Bose-Einstein condensate

Abstract

We study a two-level atom coupled to a Bose-Einstein condensate. We show that the rules governing the decoherence of mesoscopic superpositions involving different classical-like states of the condensate can be probed using this system. This scheme is applicable irrespective of whether the condensate is initially in a coherent, thermal or more generally in any mixture of coherent states. The effects of atom loss and finite temperature to the decoherence can therefore be studied. We also discuss the various noise sources causing the decoherence.