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We're pretty sure the rings are an artifact of subtle changes in the optical wavelength filter were are using. They only occur in some of the photos and we weren't able to get them to consistently appear or disappear. Similar features can occur in Bose-Einstein condensate imaging. The main dark spot has a signal-to-noise ratio of only 5, so any reliable examining more subtle features will have to wait for our next round of system upgrades to be complete.
Originally posted by intrptr
reply to post by Bone75
Sorry if these are dumb observations, I know you guys worked hard on resolving this image. What an image too. I wanted to ask you about the diagram presented in the link.
I don't really know enough about the subject to use the right terminology, but I'll try. The shadow of the laser penetrating the atom is what leaves this image? Or is the laser going around it and producing an interference patter of "spherical edges".
The reason I ask is that I was thinking this looked like the two slit experiment where interference patterns produce waves in straight lines except that in the case of the above diagram it makes hemispheric circles instead?
Forgive me for not having the terminology correct.
My other question has to do with why you super impose an atom (with a fixed number of electrons) over a galaxy with hundreds of billions of points (stars). Do you mean to imply that the atom you "shadowed" has as many particles inside its boundary as a typical Galaxy?