Pfau, TilmanSpälter, StefanKurtsiefer, ChristianEkstrom, Christopher R.Mlynek, Jürgen2009-10-192016-03-312009-10-192016-03-311994318056496http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:93-opus-47322http://elib.uni-stuttgart.de/handle/11682/7080http://dx.doi.org/10.18419/opus-7063We have demonstrated the loss of transverse spatial coherence of an atomic wave function after a single spontaneous emission. He* atoms were both diffracted and excited by a standing light wave with a variable period. After the interaction, the excited atoms decay by a single spontaneously emitted photon. By changing the period of the standing light wave, we have mapped the loss of spatial coherence as a function of the transverse coordinate. By detecting the emitted photon one could "erase" the position information available and recover the transverse coherence in a correlation experiment, or realize a Heisenberg microscope.eninfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessAtomoptik , Kohärenz530article2010-10-04