Atomic phase conjugation from a Bose condensate

Abstract

We discuss the possibility of observing atomic phase conjugation from Bose condensates, and using it as a diagnostic tool to access the spatial coherence properties and to measure the lifetime of the condensate. We argue that since phase conjugation results from the scattering of a partial matter wave off the spatial grating produced by two other waves, it offers a natural way to directly measure such properties, and as such provides an attractive alternative to the optical methods proposed in the past.