Alladi Ramakrishnan Hall

Coherent Back Scattering of Ultra Cold Atoms

Aditya Date

IIT Kharagpur

We report [Phys Rev Lett. 2012] on the direct observation of coherent backscattering (CBS) of ultracold atoms in a quasi-twodimensional
configuration. Launching atoms with a well-defined momentum in a laser speckle disordered
potential, we follow the progressive build up of the momentum scattering pattern, consisting of a ring
associated with multiple elastic scattering, and the CBS peak in the backward direction. Monitoring the
depletion of the initial momentum component and the formation of the angular ring profile allows us to
determine microscopic transport quantities....It is
responsible for the so called weak localization phenomenon, which is the precursor of Anderson localization.