Photon recoil momentum in dispersive media
Other Condensed Matter
2009-11-11 v1
Abstract
A systematic shift of the photon recoil due to the index of refraction of a dilute gas of atoms has been observed. The recoil frequency was determined with a two-pulse light grating interferometer using near-resonant laser light. The results show that the recoil momentum of atoms caused by the absorption of a photon is n\hbar k, where n is the index of refraction of the gas and k is the vacuum wavevector of the photon. This systematic effect must be accounted for in high-precision atom interferometry with light gratings.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0502014,
title = {Photon recoil momentum in dispersive media},
author = {Gretchen K. Campbell and Aaron E. Leanhardt and Jongchul Mun and Micah Boyd and Erik W. Streed and Wolfgang Ketterle and David E. Pritchard},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0502014},
year = {2009}
}