Coherence of a bosonic Josephson junction

This research provides deeper understanding in one of quantum physics most fascinating phenomena: superfluidity. By cooling thousands of atoms to the coldest temperature in the universe we were able to explore a regime where particles behaves like waves and exhibit waves peculiar property of possessing a phase and thus the ability to interfere. Precise usage of radio-frequency fields coupled to the atoms allowed us to explore conditions under which the interaction between particles creates a coherent system, one that gives the same interference pattern every time is measured, and conditions where the interference pattern changes randomly after every measurement, thus making the system incoherent.