Abstract

We report the first observation of two-atom correlation spectrum, which is an atomic analogue of Brown-Twiss intensity interferometry for photons. In the last five years various atom interferometers, which usedspatial coherence of a single atomic de Broglie wave, were developed. However, none of the many particle correlation effects that have beendemonstrated in optics by using coherent optical beams was not testedwith atomic beam. $B!! (JSince an atomic beam available for us is an incoherent beam, the lowest-order nontrivial correlation spectrum is the second order correlation.

© 1996 Optical Society of America