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Science 7 January 2000:
Vol. 287. no. 5450, pp. 97 - 101
DOI: 10.1126/science.287.5450.97
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Research Articles

Generating Solitons by Phase Engineering of a Bose-Einstein Condensate

J. Denschlag, 1 J. E. Simsarian, 1 D. L. Feder, 12 Charles W. Clark, 1 L. A. Collins, 3 J. Cubizolles, 14 L. Deng, 1 E. W. Hagley, 1 K. Helmerson, 1 W. P. Reinhardt, 15 S. L. Rolston, 1 B. I. Schneider, 6 W. D. Phillips 1

Quantum phase engineering is demonstrated with two techniques that allow the spatial phase distribution of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) to be written and read out. A quantum state was designed and produced by optically imprinting a phase pattern onto a BEC of sodium atoms, and matter-wave interferometry with spatially resolved imaging was used to analyze the resultant phase distribution. An appropriate phase imprint created solitons, the first experimental realization of this nonlinear phenomenon in a BEC. The subsequent evolution of these excitations was investigated both experimentally and theoretically.

1 National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD 20899, USA.
2 University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PU, UK.
3 Theoretical Division, Mail Stop B212, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA.
4 Ecole Normale Superieure, 24 rue Lhomond, 75231 Paris, France.
5 Department of Chemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
6 Physics Division, National Science Foundation, Arlington, VA 22230, USA.

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