Multiple photon-echo rephasing of coherent matter waves

• A multipulse protocol to induce multiple photon echo rephasing of a BEC is proposed.
• Our method is a new and efficient way to transfer the BEC to high momentum modes.
• Our method can extend a BEC's coherence time.
• The echo sequence is analyzed to study the residual dephasing effect.
• The echo decaying is useful in high-precision measurement of BEC's momentum width.

We investigate the multiple photon echo processes in a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) with inhomogeneous momentum broadening. By applying Bragg pulses with adjusted frequency mismatch to induce multiple rephasing, the BEC satisfies the coherence condition for successive superradiance. The atomic system can be efficiently transferred to a high momentum state step by step and emits multiple photon echo signals. These echo signals as a sequence show increasing widths and descending peaks, reflecting a residual dephasing effect due to kinetic-energy phase discrepancy during the population inversions. Our work may contribute to the coherence maintenance for ultracold atomic gas in the quantum information area and the high-precision measurement of atomic momentum width.