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Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 020603 (2008) [4 pages]

Coherent Backscattering of Bose-Einstein Condensates in Two-Dimensional Disorder Potentials

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Michael Hartung1, Thomas Wellens2, Cord A. Müller3, Klaus Richter1, and Peter Schlagheck1
1Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Regensburg, 93040 Regensburg, Germany
2Physikalisches Institut, Albert-Ludwigs Universität Freiburg, 79104 Freiburg, Germany
3Physikalisches Institut, Universität Bayreuth, 95440 Bayreuth, Germany

Received 23 April 2008; revised 14 June 2008; published 11 July 2008

We study quantum transport of an interacting Bose-Einstein condensate in a two-dimensional disorder potential. In the limit of a vanishing atom-atom interaction, a sharp cone in the angle-resolved density of the scattered matter wave is observed, arising from constructive interference between amplitudes propagating along reversed scattering paths. Weak interaction transforms this coherent backscattering peak into a pronounced dip, indicating destructive instead of constructive interference. We reproduce this result, obtained from the numerical integration of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation, by a diagrammatic theory of weak localization in the presence of nonlinearity.

© 2008 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.020603
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.020603
PACS:
05.60.Gg, 03.75.Kk, 67.85.−d, 72.15.Rn