München 2004 – scientific programme

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Q: Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 36: Poster Quanteneffekte

Q 36.3: Poster

Thursday, March 25, 2004, 14:00–16:00, Schellingstr. 3

Investigation of cold collisions by matter wave interferometry method with K₂ — •Ivan Sherstov, Matthias Frank, Christian Lisdat, Horst Knöckel, and Eberhardt Tiemann — Institut für Quantenoptik, Universität Hannover, Welfengarten 1, 30167 Hannover, Germany

Matter wave interferometry with light-induced beam splitters is a very powerful tool in high precision spectroscopy. Additionally, it is used to investigate collisional properties in an atomic or molecular media like matter wave index of refraction, scattering length etc. [1-2].

The main goal of our project is to investigate the precision of matter wave interferometry in weak interaction applications like cold collisions or weak external fields. We apply the matter wave interferometry to examine No-dqcoldNo-dq collisions in the supersonic potassium beam between atoms and molecules [3]. K₂ molecules propagate through an atomic medium and hence gain some additional phase shift due to cold collisions (the relative velocity between atoms and molecules is about 20 m/s). By changing the medium’s properties (like exciting K atoms to a higher electronic state or varying the density of the atoms in the beam) we observe the change of the phase of the interference patterns.

[1] J. Schmiedmayer, M. S. Chapman, C. R. Ekstrom, T. D. Hammond, S. T. Wehinger, and D. E. Pritchard, Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 1043 (1995)

[2] Shannon Blanchard, Dave Civello, and Robert C. Forrey, Phys. Rev. A 67, 013604 (2003)

[3] Ch. Lisdat, M. Frank, H. Knockel, and E. Tiemann, Appl. Phys. B 73, 99 (2001)