Single-shot imaging of trapped Fermi gas

Institute of Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences - Aleja Lotników 32/46, PL-02668 Warsaw, Poland

Received: 2 June 2016
Accepted: 6 August 2016

Abstract

Recently developed techniques allow for simultaneous measurements of the positions of all ultra-cold atoms in a trap with high resolution. Each such single-shot experiment detects one element of the quantum ensemble formed by the cloud of atoms. Repeated single-shot measurements can be used to determine all correlations between particle positions as opposed to standard measurements that determine particle density or two-particle correlations only. In this paper we discuss the possible outcomes of such single-shot measurements in the case of cloud of ultra-cold noninteracting Fermi atoms. We show that the Pauli exclusion principle alone leads to correlations between particle positions that originate from unexpected spatial structures formed by the atoms.