2008/02/27 by J. -F. Riou, Y. Le Coq, F. Impens +4 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.other
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreva.77.033630
published as Phys. Rev. A 77, 033630 (2008)
arxiv created 2008/02/27 · arxiv updated 2010/03/19
We present a theoretical model for the propagation of non self-interacting atom laser beams. We start from a general propagation integral equation, and we use the same approximations as in photon optics to derive tools to calculate the atom laser beam propagation. We discuss the approximations that allow to reduce the general equation whether to a Fresnel-Kirchhoff integral calculated by using the stationary phase method, or to the eikonal. Within the paraxial approximation, we also introduce the ABCD matrices formalism and the beam quality factor. As an example, we apply these tools to analyse the recent experiment by Riou et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 070404 (2006)].