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Science 31 January 1997:
Vol. 275. no. 5300, pp. 637 - 641
DOI: 10.1126/science.275.5300.637
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Research Articles

Observation of Interference Between Two Bose Condensates

M. R. Andrews, C. G. Townsend, H.-J. Miesner, D. S. Durfee, D. M. Kurn, W. Ketterle

Interference between two freely expanding Bose-Einstein condensates has been observed. Two condensates separated by ~40 micrometers were created by evaporatively cooling sodium atoms in a double-well potential formed by magnetic and optical forces. High-contrast matter-wave interference fringes with a period of ~15 micrometers were observed after switching off the potential and letting the condensates expand for 40 milliseconds and overlap. This demonstrates that Bose condensed atoms are "laser-like"; that is, they are coherent and show long-range correlations. These results have direct implications for the atom laser and the Josephson effect for atoms.

The authors are in the Department of Physics and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

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