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Updated: May 27, 2026

Uncovering Hidden Dynamics of Natural Photonic Structures Using Holographic Imaging
Published on: March 31, 2022
Bragg scattering as a probe of atomic wave functions and quantum phase transitions in optical lattices
Hirokazu Miyake1, Georgios A Siviloglou, Graciana Puentes
1MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms, Research Laboratory of Electronics, and Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
Abstract:
We have observed Bragg scattering of photons from quantum degenerate ^{87}Rb atoms in a three-dimensional optical lattice. Bragg scattered light directly probes the microscopic crystal structure and atomic wave function whose position and momentum width is Heisenberg limited. The spatial coherence of the wave function leads to revivals in the Bragg scattered light due to the atomic Talbot effect. The decay of revivals across the superfluid to Mott insulator transition indicates the loss of superfluid coherence.
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