Quantum atom optics with fermions from molecular dissociation

We study a fermionic atom optics counterpart of parametric down-conversion with photons. This can be realized through dissociation of a Bose-Einstein condensate of molecular dimers consisting of fermionic atoms. We present a theoretical model describing the quantum dynamics of dissociation and find analytic solutions for mode occupancies and atomic pair correlations, valid in the short time limit. The solutions are used to identify upper bounds for the correlation functions, which are applicable to any fermionic system and correspond to ideal particle number-difference squeezingComment: Changes in response to referees' comments, updated reference

Exploring Lifetime Effects in Femtoscopy

We investigate the role of lifetime effects from resonances and emission duration tails in femtoscopy at RHIC in two Blast-Wave models. We find the non-Gaussian components compare well with published source imaged data, but the value of R_out obtained from Gaussian fits is not insensitive to the non-Gaussian contributions when realistic acceptance cuts are applied to models.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Rescattering Effects on Intensity Interferometry

We derive a general formula for the correlation function of two identical particles with the inclusion of multiple elastic scatterings in the medium in which the two particles are produced. This formula involves the propagator of the particle in the medium. As illustration of the effect we apply the formula to the special case where the scatterers are static, localized 2-body potentials. In this illustration both $R^2_{\rm side}$ and $R^2_{\rm out}$ are increased by an amount proportional to the square of the spatial density of scatterers and to the differential cross section. Specific numbers are used to show the expected magnitude of the rescattering effect on kaon interferometry.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure

Multiparticle Interference, GHZ Entanglement, and Full Counting Statistics

We investigate the quantum transport in a generalized N-particle Hanbury Brown--Twiss setup enclosing magnetic flux, and demonstrate that the Nth-order cumulant of current cross correlations exhibits Aharonov-Bohm oscillations, while there is no such oscillation in all the lower-order cumulants. The multiparticle interference results from the orbital Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger entanglement of N indistinguishable particles. For sufficiently strong Aharonov-Bohm oscillations the generalized Bell inequalities may be violated, proving the N-particle quantum nonlocality.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, published versio

Transition from antibunching to bunching in cavity QED

The photon statistics of the light emitted from an atomic ensemble into a single field mode of an optical cavity is investigated as a function of the number of atoms. The light is produced in a Raman transition driven by a pump laser and the cavity vacuum [M.Hennrich et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 4672 (2000)], and a recycling laser is employed to repeat this process continuously. For weak driving, a smooth transition from antibunching to bunching is found for about one intra-cavity atom. Remarkably, the bunching peak develops within the antibunching dip. For saturated driving and a growing number of atoms, the bunching amplitude decreases and the bunching duration increases, indicating the onset of Raman lasing.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Universal measurement of quantum correlations of radiation

A measurement technique is proposed which, in principle, allows one to observe the general space-time correlation properties of a quantized radiation field. Our method, called balanced homodyne correlation measurement, unifies the advantages of balanced homodyne detection with those of homodyne correlation measurements.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, small misprints were corrected, accepted to Phys. Rev. Let

Instrumental and Analytic Methods for Bolometric Polarimetry

We discuss instrumental and analytic methods that have been developed for the first generation of bolometric cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarimeters. The design, characterization, and analysis of data obtained using Polarization Sensitive Bolometers (PSBs) are described in detail. This is followed by a brief study of the effect of various polarization modulation techniques on the recovery of sky polarization from scanning polarimeter data. Having been successfully implemented on the sub-orbital Boomerang experiment, PSBs are currently operational in two terrestrial CMB polarization experiments (QUaD and the Robinson Telescope). We investigate two approaches to the analysis of data from these experiments, using realistic simulations of time ordered data to illustrate the impact of instrumental effects on the fidelity of the recovered polarization signal. We find that the analysis of difference time streams takes full advantage of the high degree of common mode rejection afforded by the PSB design. In addition to the observational efforts currently underway, this discussion is directly applicable to the PSBs that constitute the polarized capability of the Planck HFI instrument.Comment: 23 pages, 11 figures. for submission to A&

Small size boundary effects on two-pion interferometry

The Bose-Einstein correlations of two identically charged pions are derived when these particles, the most abundantly produced in relativistic heavy ion collisions, are confined in finite volumes. Boundary effects on single pion spectrum are also studied. Numerical results emphasize that conventional formulation usually adopted to describe two-pion interferometry should not be used when the source size is small, since this is the most sensitive case to boundary effects. Specific examples are considered for better illustration.Comment: more discussion on Figure4 and diffuse boundar

Correlations in atomic systems: Diagnosing coherent superpositions

While investigating quantum correlations in atomic systems, we note that single measurements contain information about these correlations. Using a simple model of measurement -- analogous to the one used in quantum optics -- we show how to extract higher order correlation functions from individual "phtotographs" of the atomic sample. As a possible application we apply the method to detect a subtle phase coherence in mesoscopic superpostitions.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, provisionally accepted to Physical Review Letter