Jwr. Tabosa et al., Transient Bragg diffraction by a transferred population grating: application for cold atoms velocimetry, OPT COMMUN, 165(1-3), 1999, pp. 59-64
We report the observation of transient Bragg diffraction by an optical-pump
ing-transferred ground-state population grating in cold cesium atoms confin
ed in a magneto-optical trap. The measurement of the grating decay time giv
es direct access to the temperature of the cold sample. In principle, the m
ethod can be employed to provide directional information on the trap veloci
ty distribution. For strong excitation the transferred grating becomes anha
rmonic and higher-order diffraction is observed. (C) 1999 Published by Else
vier Science B.V. All rights reserved.