Signatures of nonlocality in the first-order coherence of scattered light

Abstract

The spatial coherence of an atomic wavepacket can be detected in scattered photons, even when the center-of-mass motion is in the quantum coherent superposition of two distant, nonoverlapping wavepackets. Spatial coherence manifests itself in the power spectrum of the emitted photons, whose spectral components can exhibit interference fringes as a function of the emission angle. The contrast and the phase of this interference pattern provide information about the quantum state of the center of mass of the scattering atom. © 2007 MAIK "Nauka/Interperiodica".