Abstract

Magnetic levitation is used to obtain clear spatial interference between two Bose-Einstein condensates which are initially axially separated. Fringes with periods of up to 85 µm are observed using standard (non-tomographic) resonant absorption imaging, utilising the `magnifying' effect of a weak axial inverted parabolic potential [1]. With 160ms levitation [2], and careful choice of probe detuning, single-shot interference contrast of > 95% is observed (Fig. 1a) - close to the theoretical limit caused by CCD camera pixellation of the sinusoidal fringes. In addition, we observe dramatic variation of the fringe contrast as a function of camera focal position due to the spatial Talbot effect.

© 2015 IEEE