Gattobigio GL, Couvert A, Reinaudi G, Georgeot B, Guéry-Odelin D. Optically guided beam splitter for propagating matter waves.
PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 2012;
109:030403. [PMID:
22861829 DOI:
10.1103/physrevlett.109.030403]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/05/2012] [Revised: 05/21/2012] [Indexed: 06/01/2023]
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 quasimonomode 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 X 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.
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