Methods for Non-destructive Temperature Measurements in a Magneto-Optical Trap

Certain practical applications for precision measurements by atom interferometers require knowledge of the input atom cloud's temperature from realization to realization. Recent work [1,2] has shown how to measure the temperature of atoms in a magneto-optical trap in a non-destructive, {\em in situ} manner. We discuss an alternate, simpler method for the nondestructive measurement of the temperature of an atom cloud and compare our method with earlier techniques. \\[4pt] [1] T. Brzozowski, M. Brzozowska, J. Zachorowski, M. Zawada, W. Gawlik, {\em PRA}, {\bf 71}, 013401 (2005).\\[0pt] [2] M. Brzozowska, T. Brzozowski J. Zachorowski, W. Gawlik, {\em PRA}, {\bf 72}, 061401(R), (2005).