Two-Particle Four-Mode Interferometer for Atoms

Phys Rev Lett. 2017 Oct 27;119(17):173202. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.173202. Epub 2017 Oct 24.

Abstract

We present a free-space interferometer to observe two-particle interference of a pair of atoms with entangled momenta. The source of atom pairs is a Bose-Einstein condensate subject to a dynamical instability, and the interferometer is realized using Bragg diffraction on optical lattices, in the spirit of our recent Hong-Ou-Mandel experiment. We report on an observation ruling out the possibility of a purely mixed state at the input of the interferometer. We explain how our current setup can be extended to enable a test of a Bell inequality on momentum observables.