Momentum Spectroscopy of 1D Phase Fluctuations in Bose-Einstein Condensates

Abstract

We measure the axial momentum distribution of Bose-Einstein condensates with an aspect ratio of 152 using Bragg spectroscopy. We observe the Lorentzian momentum distribution characteristic of one-dimensional phase fluctuations. The temperature dependence of the width of this distribution provides a quantitative test of quasicondensate theory. In addition, we observe a condensate length consistent with the suppression of density fluctuations, even when phase fluctuations are large.