Abstract

We confine atoms in a dipole trap formed by a sheet of light, resulting in a pancake-shaped cloud. We can image the transverse spatial distribution of atoms to observe local variations in the density, including vortices and anti-vortices. Using atom interferometry, we can determine the onset of spatial coherence. By performing evaporative cooling, for varying initial atom numbers, we observe the transition from thermal, to bimodal, to quasi-condensate, to 2-D Bose-Einstein condensate.

© 2007 Optical Society of America