Abstract

Atom-atom interactions play an important role in the dynamics of cold atoms trapped in optical lattices,¹ and may be crucial to the formation of small scale structure within the lattice. Spatial distributions of atoms trapped in optical lattices are normally probed by absorption or fluorescence spectroscopy.² We investigate the possibility of deducing spatial information from the Hanbury-Brown Twiss stellar-interferometeric techniques of coincidence counts. This is analogous to the time-delayed coincidence counting employed in analyzing degenerate Bose and Fermi gases.^3,4

© 1999 Optical Society of America