Enhanced backscattering of a dilute Bose-Einstein condensate

Abstract

We study experimentally and numerically the quasi-bidimensional transport of a 87Rb Bose-Einstein condensate launched with a velocity v 0 inside a disordered optical potential created by a speckle pattern. A time-of-flight analysis reveals a pronounced enhanced density peak in the backscattering direction -v0, a feature reminiscent of coherent backscattering. Detailed numerical simulations indicate, however, that other effects also contribute to this enhancement, including a "backscattering echo" due to the position-momentum correlations of the initial wave packet. © Copyright EPLA, 2012.