Tomography of Atom Beams
- 1 November 1995
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Modern Optics
- Vol. 42 (11) , 2183-2199
- https://doi.org/10.1080/09500349514551901
Abstract
We investigate the accuracy of an experimental reconstruction of the Wigner function of the transverse motion in an atom beam using numerical wave packet simulations. For the example of a superposition of two Gaussians (the outcome of a double slit, for example) we study in detail the influence of experimental restraints on the quality of the reconstruction. For the potential candidate, metastable helium, we demonstrate that an accurate reconstruction of the Wigner function, especially of its negative parts, is well within experimental reach.Keywords
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