Stuttgart 2012 – scientific programme

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A: Fachverband Atomphysik

A 40: Poster: Ultra-cold atoms, ions and BEC

A 40.20: Poster

Thursday, March 15, 2012, 16:30–19:00, Poster.V

Interference of a Rydberg-dressed Bose-Einstein condensate released from an optical lattice — •Lama Hamadeh, Weibin Li, and Igor Lesanovsky — School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK

We study the interference of bosonic atoms in a superfluid state released from an optical lattice. The electronic ground state of each atom is weakly coupled to a highly excited Rydberg state by a far-off-resonant laser. This admixture of the Rydberg state induces effective short-range and long-range interactions between ground state atoms. We study the influence of the far-off-resonant laser driving on the interference pattern produced when the atoms are released from the optical lattice. For a fixed dressing time, the interference pattern depends strongly on the relative strength of the short-range and long-range interactions. Our study reveals that the corresponding visibility differs significantly for different momentum components of the expanded atomic cloud. As a result, the momentum dependent visibility can be used to distinguish the relative strength of the long-range and the short-range interactions.