title: Light scattering for thermometry of fermionic atoms in an optical lattice.
abstract: We propose a method of using off-resonant light scattering to measure the temperature of fermionic atoms tightly confined in a two-dimensional optical-lattice potential. We show that fluctuations of the intensity in the far-field diffraction pattern arising from thermal correlations of the atoms can be accurately detected above the shot noise by collecting photons scattered in a forward direction, with the diffraction maxima blocked. The sensitivity of this method of thermometry is enhanced by an additional harmonic trapping potential.
authors.affiliation: School of Mathematics, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ruostekoski
authors.forename: C J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Foot
authors.forename: A B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Deb