⁸⁷Rubidium Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices

Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices have proven to be a powerful tool for studying a wide variety of physics. In this thesis a series of experiments using optical lattices to manipulate 87Rb Bose-Einstein condensates are described. A systematic shift of the photon recoil momentum due to the index of refraction of a dilute gas of atoms has been observed. The recoil frequency was measured interferometrically using a two-pulse Ramsey interferometer. The two pulses were created using a one dimensional optical lattice. By measuring the resulting frequency as a function of the lattice detuning from the atomic resonance, we found a distinctive dispersive shape for the recoil frequency that fit the recoil momentum as n,.hk. A one-dimensional optical lattice was used to modify the dispersion relation of the condensate in order to demonstrate the matter-wave analogue of Optical Parametric Generation (OPG) and Amplification (OPA) of photons. A condensate was loaded into a moving optical lattice with adjustable quasimomentum k0. As the value for k0o was varied, we observed elastic scattering into two distinct final momentum states k1 and k2.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Physics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Campbell, Gretchen K. (Gretchen Kathleen)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Wolfgang Ketterle and David E. Pritchard.

• Physics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/39295

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/39295