Optics and interferometry with matter waves is the art of coherently manipulating the translational motion of particles like neutrons, atoms and molecules. Coherent atom optics is an extension of techniques that were developed for manipulating emph{i
nternal} quantum states. Applying these ideas to translational motion required the development of techniques to localize atoms and transfer population coherently between distant localities. In this view position and momentum are (continuouse) quantum mechanical degree of freedom analogous to discrete internal quantum states. In our contribution we start with an introduction into matter-wave optics in section 1, discuss coherent atom optics and atom interferometry techniques for molecular beams in section 2 and for trapped atoms in section 3. In section 4 we then describe tools and experiments that allow us to probe the evolution of quantum states of many-body systems by atom interference.
We numerically model the evolution of a pair of coherently split quasicondensates. A truly one-dimensional case is assumed, so that the loss of the (initially high) coherence between the two quasicondensates is due to dephasing only, but not due to t
he violation of integrability and subsequent thermalization (which are excluded from the present model). We confirm the subexponential time evolution of the coherence between two quasicondensates $propto exp [-(t/t_0)^{2/3}]$, experimentally observed by S. Hofferberth {em et. al.}, Nature {bf 449}, 324 (2007). The characteristic time $t_0$ is found to scale as the square of the ratio of the linear density of a quasicondensate to its temperature, and we analyze the full distribution function of the interference contrast and the decay of the phase correlation.
We study the collisional processes that can lead to thermalization in one-dimensional systems. For two body collisions excitations of transverse modes are the prerequisite for energy exchange and thermalzation. At very low temperatures excitations of
transverse modes are exponentially suppressed, thermalization by two body collisions stops and the system should become integrable. In quantum mechanics virtual excitations of higher radial modes are possible. These virtually excited radial modes give rise to effective three-body velocity-changing collisions which lead to thermalization. We show that these three-body elastic interactions are suppressed by pairwise quantum correlations when approaching the strongly correlated regime. If the relative momentum $k$ is small compared to the two-body coupling constant $c$ the three-particle scattering state is suppressed by a factor of $(k/c)^{12}$, which is proportional to $gamma ^{12}$, that is to the square of the three-body correlation function at zero distance in the limit of the Lieb-Liniger parameter $gamma gg 1$. This demonstrates that in one dimensional quantum systems it is not the freeze-out of two body collisions but the strong quantum correlations which ensures absence of thermalization on experimentally relevant time scales.
We study the fluctuation properties of a one-dimensional many-body quantum system composed of interacting bosons, and investigate the regimes where quantum noise or, respectively, thermal excitations are dominant. For the latter we develop a semiclas
sical description of the fluctuation properties based on the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck stochastic process. As an illustration, we analyze the phase correlation functions and the full statistical distributions of the interference between two one-dimensional systems, either independent or tunnel-coupled and compare with the Luttinger-liquid theory.
We provide a simple physical picture of the loss of coherence between two coherently split one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates. The source of the dephasing is identified with nonlinear corrections to the elementary excitation energies in either
of the two independent condensates. We retrieve the result by Burkov, Lukin and Demler [Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 200404 (2007)] on the subexponential decay of the cocherence for the large time, however, the scaling of the characteristic decoherence time differs.
We give a comprehensive overview of the development of micro traps, from the first experiments on guiding atoms using current carrying wires in the early 1990s to the creation of a BEC on an atom chip.
We demonstrate that virtual excitations of higher radial modes in an atomic Bose gas in a tightly confining waveguide result in effective three-body collisions that violate integrability in this quasi-one-dimensional quantum system and give rise to t
hermalization. The estimated thermalization rates are consistent with recent experimental results in quasi-1D dynamics of ultracold atoms.
