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Elastic Scattering Loss of Atoms from Colliding Bose-Einstein Condensate Wave Packets

Published

Author(s)

Y B. Band, M Trippenbach, J P. Burke, Paul S. Julienne

Abstract

Bragg diffraction of atoms by light waves has been used to create high momentum components in a Bose-Einstein condensate. Collisions between atoms from two distinct momentum wavepackets cause elastic scattering that can remove a significant fraction of atoms from the wavepackets and cause the formation of a spherical shell of scattered atoms. This process can not be described by the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. We develop a slowly varying envelope technique for including the effects of this mechanism into the condensate dynamics. Three-dimensional numerical calculations are presented for two experimental situations: passage of a moving daughter condensate through a non-moving parent condensate, and four-wave mixing of matter waves.
Citation
Physical Review Letters
Volume
84
Issue
No. 24

Keywords

Bose-Einstein condensation, elastic scattering, mean-field effects, nonlinear dynamics

Citation

Band, Y. , Trippenbach, M. , Burke, J. and Julienne, P. (2000), Elastic Scattering Loss of Atoms from Colliding Bose-Einstein Condensate Wave Packets, Physical Review Letters (Accessed November 14, 2024)

Issues

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Created May 31, 2000, Updated October 12, 2021