Eur. Phys. J. D 32, 167-170 (2005)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2004-00124-1

From superradiant Rayleigh scattering to Bragg scattering

¹ INFM and European Laboratory for Non-Linear Spectroscopy (LENS), via N. Carrara 1, 50019 Sesto F.no (FI), Italy
² Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Firenze, via Sansone 1, 50019 Sesto F.no (FI), Italy
³ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Catania, via S. Sofia 64, 95124 Catania, Italy

Corresponding author: ^a fsc@lens.unifi.it

Received: 15 July 2004
Published online: 21 September 2004

Abstract

We present the results of an experiment on light scattering from an elongated Bose-Einstein condensate interacting with far off resonant laser light. Due to superradiant Rayleigh scattering a coherent superposition of two atomic wavepackets with different momenta forms in the presence of a single laser beam. Varying the intensity of a weak counterpropagating laser beam we observe the transition from the pure superradiant regime to the Bragg scattering regime, where Rabi oscillations in a two-level system are observed. The process is limited by the decoherence between the two atomic wavepackets.