Glory oscillations in the index of refraction for matter waves

Phys Rev Lett. 2002 Nov 11;89(20):200406. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.89.200406. Epub 2002 Oct 29.

Abstract

We have measured the index of refraction for sodium de Broglie waves in gases of Ar, Kr, Xe, and N2 over a wide range of sodium velocities. We observe glory oscillations--a velocity-dependent oscillation in the forward scattering amplitude. An atom interferometer was used to observe glory oscillations in the phase shift caused by the collision, which are larger than glory oscillations observed in the cross section. The glory oscillations depend sensitively on the shape of the interatomic potential, allowing us to discriminate among various predictions for these potentials, none of which completely agrees with our measurements.