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Phys. Rev. A 75, 011602(R) (2007) [4 pages]

Population and phase coherence during the growth of an elongated Bose-Einstein condensate

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M. Hugbart, J. A. Retter, A. F. Varón, P. Bouyer*, and A. Aspect
Laboratoire Charles Fabry de l’Institut d’Optique, CNRS, Université Paris-Sud, Campus Polytechnique, RD128, 91127, Palaiseau cedex, France

M. J. Davis
ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum-Atom Optics, School of Physical Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072, Australia

Received 21 December 2005; published 5 January 2007

We study the growth of an elongated phase-fluctuating condensate from a nonequilibrium thermal cloud in the axially hydrodynamic regime, obtained by shock cooling. Quantitative measurements using momentum Bragg spectroscopy reveal the evolution of the phase coherence as the condensate grows to equilibrium. We find no delay between the population growth and the development of the phase coherence. We also compare the growth of the condensate with numerical simulations based on kinetic theory, revealing quantitative agreement except for an unexplained time delay.

© 2007 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevA.75.011602
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevA.75.011602
PACS:
03.75.Kk, 03.75.Nt

*Electronic address: philippe.bouyer@institutoptique.fr

 
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