Analysis of Kapitza-Dirac diffraction patterns beyond the Raman-Nath regime
Quantum Gases
2009-11-17 v1
Abstract
We study Kapitza-Dirac diffraction of a Bose-Einstein condensate from a standing light wave for a square pulse with variable pulse length but constant pulse area. We find that for sufficiently weak pulses, the usual analytical short-pulse prediction for the Raman-Nath regime continues to hold for longer times, albeit with a reduction of the apparent modulation depth of the standing wave. We quantitatively relate this effect to the Fourier width of the pulse, and draw analogies to the Rabi dynamics of a coupled two-state system. Our findings, combined with numerical modeling for stronger pulses, are of practical interest for the calibration of optical lattices in ultracold atomic systems.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0907.3507,
title = {Analysis of Kapitza-Dirac diffraction patterns beyond the Raman-Nath regime},
author = {Bryce Gadway and Daniel Pertot and Rene Reimann and Martin G. Cohen and Dominik Schneble},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0907.3507},
year = {2009}
}