Enhanced backscattering of a dilute Bose-Einstein condensate

We study experimentally and numerically the quasi-bidimensional transport of a Rb-87 Bose-Einstein condensate launched with a velocity v(0) inside a disordered optical potential created by a speckle pattern. A time-of-flight analysis reveals a pronounced enhanced density peak in the backscattering direction -v(0), a feature reminiscent of coherent backscattering. Detailed numerical simulations indicate, however, that other effects also contribute to this enhancement, including a backscattering echo due to the position-momentum correlations of the initial wave packet. Copyright (c) EPLA, 2012