Phase Retrieval of Vortices in Bose-Einstein Condensates

We propose and demonstrate numerically a measurement scheme for complete reconstruction of the quantum wavefunctions of Bose-Einstein condensates, amplitude and phase, from a time of flight measurement. We identify a fundamental ambiguity present in the measurement of vortices and show how to overcome it by augmenting the measurement to allow reconstruction of matter-wave vortices and arrays of vortices

Observation of Accelerating Wave Packets in Curved Space

We present the first experimental observation of accelerating beams in curved space. More specifically, we demonstrate, experimentally and theoretically, shape-preserving accelerating beams propagating on spherical surfaces: closed-form solutions of the wave equation manifesting nongeodesic self-similar evolution. Unlike accelerating beams in flat space, these wave packets change their acceleration trajectory due to the interplay between interference effects and the space curvature, and they focus and defocus periodically due to the spatial curvature of the medium in which they propagate