Science, Vol.273, No.5271, 84-87, 1996
Direct, Nondestructive Observation of a Bose Condensate
The spatial obsewation of a Bose condensate is reported. Dispersive light scattering was used to observe the separation between the condensed and normal components of the Bose gas inside a magnetic trap. This technique is nondestructive, and about a hundred images of the same condensate can be taken. The width of the angular distribution of scattered light increased suddenly at the phase transition.