Coherence and linewidth of a continuously pumped atom laser at finite temperature

Geoffrey M. Lee, Simon A. Haine, Ashton S. Bradley, and Matthew J. Davis

Phys. Rev. A 92, 013605 – Published 6 July 2015

Abstract

A continuous-wave atom laser formed by the outcoupling of atoms from a trapped Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) potentially has a range of metrological applications. However, in order for the device to be truly continuous, a mechanism to replenish the atoms in the BEC is required. Here we calculate the temporal coherence properties of a continuously pumped atom laser beam outcoupled from a trapped Bose-Einstein condensate that is replenished from a reservoir at finite temperature. We find that the thermal fluctuations of the condensate can significantly decrease the temporal coherence of the output beam due to atomic interactions between the trapped BEC and the beam, and this can impact the metrological usefulness of the device. We demonstrate that a Raman outcoupling scheme imparting a sufficient momentum kick to the atom laser beam can lead to a significantly reduced linewidth.

Received 31 May 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.92.013605

Authors & Affiliations

Geoffrey M. Lee¹, Simon A. Haine^1,*, Ashton S. Bradley², and Matthew J. Davis^1,3

¹The University of Queensland, School of Mathematics and Physics, Qld 4072, Australia
²Jack Dodd Centre for Quantum Technology, Department of Physics, University of Otago, P.O. Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand
³JILA, University of Colorado, 440 UCB, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA

^*haine@physics.uq.edu.au

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Vol. 92, Iss. 1 — July 2015

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