Atom-optics knife edge: Measuring narrow momentum distributions
Atom-optics knife edge: Measuring narrow momentum distributions
By employing the equivalent of a knife-edge measurement for matter waves, we are able to characterize ultralow-momentum widths. We measure a momentum width corresponding to an effective temperature of $0.9\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}0.2$ nK, limited only by our cooling performance. To achieve similar resolution using standard methods would require hundreds of milliseconds of …