Berlin 2001 – scientific programme
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Q: Quantenoptik
Q 1: Poster: Atom Optics
Q 1.11: Poster
Monday, April 2, 2001, 12:30–15:00, AT2
Decohering condensates — •Carsten Henkel1, Sierk Pötting2, and Simon A. Gardiner1 — 1Institut für Physik, Universität Potsdam — 2Optical Sciences Center Tucson, USA, MPI für Quantenoptik Garching, and Sektion Physik, Universität München
Condensates in small waveguides are subject to thermal fluctuations and decohere. Using mean field theory, we discuss the free expansion of a condensate in a low-dimensional waveguide and the decoherence due to scattering from noise fields [1]. Up to an initial ‘mean field explosion’ phase, the condensate does not behave qualitatively different from a non-interacting gas. We outline the conditions needed to maintain long-range spatial coherence in a guided condensate.
[1] C. Henkel and S. Pötting, Appl. Phys. B 72 (2001) 73.