Cooper pair coherence in a superfluid Fermi gas of atoms
We study the coherence properties of a trapped two-component gas of fermionic atoms below the BCS critical temperature. We propose an optical method to investigate the Cooper pair coherence across different regions of the superfluid. Near-resonant laser light is used to induce transitions between the two coupled hyperfine states. The beam is split so that it probes two spatially separate regions of the gas. Absorption of the light in this interferometric scheme depends on the Cooper pair coherence between the two regions.