Optically guided beam splitter for propagating matter waves
Abstract
We study experimentally and theoretically a beam splitter setup for guided atomic matter waves. The matter wave is a guided atom laser that can be tuned from quasi-monomode to a regime where many transverse modes are populated, and propagates in a horizontal dipole beam until it crosses another horizontal beam at 45. We show that depending on the parameters of this configuration, the atoms can all end up in one of the two beams (the system behaves as a perfect guide switch), or be split between the four available channels (the system behaves as a beam splitter). The splitting regime results from a chaotic scattering dynamics. The existence of these different regimes turns out to be robust against small variations of the parameters of the system. From numerical studies, we also propose a scheme that provides a robust and controlled beam splitter in two channels only.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1203.1220,
title = {Optically guided beam splitter for propagating matter waves},
author = {Giovanni Luca Gattobigio and Antoine Couvert and Gael Reinaudi and Bertrand Georgeot and David Guery-Odelin},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1203.1220},
year = {2013}
}