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Observing the Profile of an Atom Laser Beam

M. Köhl, Th. Busch, K. Molmer, T. W. Hänsch, T. Esslinger

cond-mat.otherarXiv:cond-mat/0508778

Abstract

We report on an investigation of the beam profile of an atom laser extracted from a magnetically trapped 87Rb Bose-Einstein condensate. The transverse momentum distribution is magnified by a curved mirror for matter waves and a momentum resolution of 1/60 of a photon recoil is obtained. We find the transverse momentum distribution to be determined by the mean-field potential of the residing condensate, which leads to a non-smooth transverse density distribution. Our experimental data are compared with a full 3D simulation of the output coupling process and we find good agreement.

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