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Published on: July 29, 2013
Three-dimensional Anderson localization of ultracold matter
S S Kondov1, W R McGehee, J J Zirbel
1Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
Abstract:
Anderson localization (AL) is a ubiquitous interference phenomenon in which waves fail to propagate in a disordered medium. We observe three-dimensional AL of noninteracting ultracold matter by allowing a spin-polarized atomic Fermi gas to expand into a disordered potential. A two-component density distribution emerges consisting of an expanding mobile component and a nondiffusing localized component. We extract a mobility edge that increases with the disorder strength, whereas the thermally averaged localization length is shown to decrease with disorder strength and increase with particle energy. These measurements provide a benchmark for more sophisticated theories of AL.
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