SPONTANEOUS PHOTON-EMISSION STIMULATED BY 2 BOSE-EINSTEIN CONDENSATES

We show that the phase difference of two overlapping ground-state Bose -Einstein condensates can affect the optical spontaneous emission rare of elicited atoms. Depending on the phase difference the atom-stimula ted spontaneous emission rate can vary between zero and the rate corre sponding to all the ground-state atoms in a single condensate. Besides giving control over spontaneous emission this provides an optical met hod for detecting the condensate phase difference. It differs from pre vious methods in that no light fields are applied. Instead the light i s spontaneously emitted when excited atoms make a transition into eith er condensate.