Phys. Rev. A 73, 043602 (2006) [4 pages]Cavity QED detection of interfering matter wavesReceived 26 January 2006; published 5 April 2006 We observe the build-up of a matter wave interference pattern from single atom detection events in a double-slit experiment. The interference arises from two overlapping atom laser beams extracted from a rubidium Bose-Einstein condensate. Our detector is a high-finesse optical cavity which realizes a quantum measurement of the presence of an atom and thereby projects delocalized atoms into a state with zero or one atom in the resonator. The experiment reveals simultaneously the granular and the wave nature of matter. We present a setup which is suited for applications in atom interferometry and cavity QED. © 2006 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevA.73.043602
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevA.73.043602
PACS:
03.75.Dg, 03.75.Pp, 05.30.Jp, 42.50.Pq
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