Abstract
Speckle patterns produced by multiple independent light sources are a manifestation of the coherence of the light field. Second-order correlations exhibited in phenomena such as photon bunching, termed the Hanbury Brown-Twiss effect, are a measure of quantum coherence. Here we observe for the first time atomic speckle produced by atoms transmitted through an optical waveguide, and link this to second-order correlations of the atomic arrival times. We show that multimode matter-wave guiding, which is directly analogous to multimode light guiding in optical fibres, produces a speckled transverse intensity pattern and atom bunching, whereas single-mode guiding of atoms that are output-coupled from a Bose-Einstein condensate yields a smooth intensity profile and a second-order correlation value of unity. Both first- and second-order coherence are important for applications requiring a fully coherent atomic source, such as squeezed-atom interferometry.
Highlights
Speckle patterns produced by multiple independent light sources are a manifestation of the coherence of the light field
The technique involved measuring the statistical distribution of arrival times τ between photon pairs, known as the second-order temporal correlation function g(2)(τ) normalized by the light intensity[4]
The peak value of g(2)(τ) is enhanced by a factor of two, compared with the asymptotic value of unity for large arrival delay times. This temporal bunching can be described in terms of the speckle pattern produced by multiple independent sources, the phases of which fluctuate[2]
Summary
Speckle patterns produced by multiple independent light sources are a manifestation of the coherence of the light field. We measure directly the speckle properties of the guided matter waves, but we relate this to the second-order correlation function g(2)(τ) to demonstrate that speckle is characterized by atom bunching.
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