title: Phase-sensitive recombination of two bose-einstein condensates on an atom chip.
abstract: The recombination of two split Bose-Einstein condensates on an atom chip is shown to result in heating which depends on the relative phase of the two condensates. This heating reduces the number of condensate atoms between 10% and 40% and provides a robust way to read out the phase of an atom interferometer without the need for ballistic expansion. The heating may be caused by the dissipation of dark solitons created during the merging of the condensates.
authors.affiliation: MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms, Research Laboratory of Electronics, Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
authors.forename: G-B
authors.initials: GB
authors.lastname: Jo
authors.forename: J-H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.forename: C A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Christensen
authors.forename: T A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Pasquini
authors.forename: Y-R
authors.initials: YR
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Ketterle
authors.forename: D E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Pritchard