The Hanbury Brown-Twiss effect in a pulsed atom laser

• DOI: 10.1364/oe.18.018712
• Publication Date: 2010-08-18T19:13:02Z
• Authors: A. G. Manning; S. S. Hodgman; R. G. Dall; M. T. Johnsson; A. G. Truscott
• Keywords: Metastability

We have used the Hanbury Brown-Twiss effect to directly compare density correlations of a pulsed atom laser and ultracold thermal source metastable helium. It was found that isotropic RF outcoupling atoms from Bose-Einstein condensate does not result in decoherence, while 'bunching' typical incoherent sources observed for atoms. This new method significantly increases data acquisition rates compared previous measurements, also permits future novel experiments which may allow us probe processes such as birth death by monitoring correlation effects.