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Published Online September 15, 2005
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1118024

Reports

Submitted on July 27, 2005
Accepted on September 5, 2005

Hanbury Brown Twiss Effect for Ultracold Quantum Gases

M. Schellekens 1, R. Hoppeler 1, A. Perrin 1, J. Viana Gomes 2, D. Boiron 1, A. Aspect 1, C. I. Westbrook 1*

1 Laboratoire Charles Fabry de l'Institut d'Optique, UMR 8501 du CNRS, Centre Scientifique d'Orsay, Bat. 503, 91403 Orsay CEDEX France.
2 Laboratoire Charles Fabry de l'Institut d'Optique, UMR 8501 du CNRS, Centre Scientifique d'Orsay, Bat. 503, 91403 Orsay CEDEX France; Departimento de Fisica, Universidade do Minho 4710-057, Braga Portugal.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
C. I. Westbrook , E-mail: christoph.westbrook{at}iota.u-psud.fr

We have studied 2-body correlations of atoms in an expanding cloud above and below the Bose-Einstein condensation threshold. The observed correlation function for a thermal cloud shows a bunching behavior, while the correlation is flat for a coherent sample. These quantum correlations are the atomic analogue of the Hanbury Brown Twiss effect. We observe the effect in three dimensions and study its dependence on cloud size.




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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)