Atom optics: Old ideas, current technology, and new results
Short summary:
physics, atom optics, de Broglie, matter wave interferometer, atom ... atoms within a two-path atom interferometer at dierent locations corresponding to ...
Long summary:
These ideas have been combined with current technology to produce the eld of atom optics. This, in turn, has shed new light on old quantum problems like the which way problem and the origins of quantum decoherence. Bose Einstein condensates combine naturally with atom optics to produce new results such as the coherent amplication of matter waves. This review of atom optics traces these connections. Keywords: quantum physics, atom optics, de Broglie, matter wave interferometer, atom laser, decoherence PACS: 03.75, 03.75.B, 03.75.D, 03.75.F, 42.50.G, 42.50.Vk, 32.80.Q 1 Introduction As its title suggests, this paper concerns the interrelationship of three themes: the fundamental physical principles that underly atom optics, the current technologies which make atom optics a reality, and the scientic results that have recently been obtained using atom optics. In this introduction we rst turn briey to the technology of atom optics, adopting the engineering viewpoint that atom optics is basically the development and perfection of techniques and devices which can manipulate the atom waves coherently 1 . The earliest demonstration of atom optics involving coherent atom waves was the diraction of atoms from crystal surfaces by Estermann and Stern in 1930 2 . The observed diraction pattern (Fig. 1) and its velocity dependence constitute the rst demonstration that atoms (or any other heavy particle) propagate as waves. Unfortunately, surface diraction has not yet been used to make atom wave devices, in part because of the diculty of aligning sequential crystals with the required tolerance. Therefore this pioneering demonstration cannot be regarded as the foundation of atom optics. Matter wave interferometry with electrons 35 and neutrons 6, 7 was demonstrated several decades before related work on atom optics. We shall now address the causes of this indeed with some humility, in view of the simplicity of atom sources relative to neutron reactors! 36 Ann. Phys. (Leipzig) 10 (2001) 12 From our engineering perspective, matter wave optics consists of lenses, mirrors, beam-splitters, and other components of an optics toolkit. The fact that electron and neutron matter waves can both be transmitted through solid material, and electrons reected or refracted by static electromagnetic elds, has enabled optical elements to be created for them. For atoms, ...
Source: www.physics.arizona.edu
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