Paired atom laser beams created via four-wave mixing

R. G. Dall, L. J. Byron, A. G. Truscott, G. R. Dennis, M. T. Johnsson, J. J. Hope

Published 2008-06-02, updated 2008-09-25Version 2

A method to create paired atom laser beams from a metastable helium atom laser via four-wave mixing is demonstrated. Radio frequency outcoupling is used to extract atoms from a Bose Einstein condensate near the center of the condensate and initiate scattering between trapped and untrapped atoms. The unequal strengths of the interactions for different internal states allows an energy-momentum resonance which leads to the creation of pairs of atoms scattered from the zero-velocity condensate. The resulting scattered beams are well separated from the main atom laser in the 2-dimensional transverse atom laser profile. Numerical simulations of the system are in good agreement with the observed atom laser spatial profiles, and indicate that the scattered beams are generated by a four-wave mixing process, suggesting that the beams are correlated.