Beyond spontaneously broken symmetry in Bose-Einstein condensates.
Spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) for Bose-Einstein condensates cannot treat phase off-diagonal effects, and thus cannot explain Bell inequality violations. We describe another situation that is beyond a SSB treatment: an experiment where particles from two (possibly macroscopic) condensate sources are used for conjugate measurements of the relative phase and populations. Off-diagonal phase effects are characterized by a "quantum angle" and observed via "population oscillations," signaling quantum interference of macroscopically distinct states.
Mullin
W J
WJ
Department of Physics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, USA.
Laloë
F
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