Continuous Measurement of Atom-Number Moments of a Bose-Einstein Condensate by Photodetection

We propose a measurement scheme that allows determination of even-moments of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) atom number, in a ring cavity, by continuous photodetection of an off-resonant quantized optical field. A fast cavity photocounting process limits the heating of atomic samples with a relatively small number of atoms, being convenient for BECs on a microchip scale applications. The measurement back-action introduces a counting-conditioned phase damping, suppressing the condensate typical collapse and revival dynamics.