Noise correlations of two-dimensional Bose gases

Abstract

We analyze density-density correlations of expanding clouds of weakly interacting two-dimensional Bose gases below and above the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition, with particular focus on short-time expansions. During time-of-flight expansion, phase fluctuations of the trapped system translate into density fluctuations, in addition to the density fluctuations that exist in in-situ. We calculate the correlations of these fluctuations both in real space and in momentum space, and derive analytic expressions in momentum space. Below the transition, the correlation functions show an oscillatory behavior, controlled by the scaling exponent of the quasi-condensed phase, due to constructive interference. We argue that this can be used to extract the scaling exponent of the quasi-condensate experimentally. Above the transition, the interference is rapidly suppressed when the atoms travel an average distance beyond the correlation length. This can be used to distinguish the two phases qualitatively.