Phys. Rev. A 72, 063618 (2005) [4 pages]Observing the profile of an atom laser beamReceived 31 August 2005; published 23 December 2005 We report on an investigation of the beam profile of an atom laser extracted from a magnetically trapped 87Rb Bose-Einstein condensate. The transverse momentum distribution is magnified by a curved mirror for matter waves and a momentum resolution of 1∕60 of a photon recoil is obtained. We find the transverse momentum distribution to be determined by the mean-field potential of the residing condensate, which leads to a nonsmooth transverse density distribution. Our experimental data are compared with a full three-dimensional simulation of the output coupling process and we find good agreement. © 2005 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevA.72.063618
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevA.72.063618
PACS:
03.75.Pp, 07.77.Gx, 32.60.+i
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