Near Resonant Spatial Images of Confined Bose-Einstein Condensates in   the '4D' Magnetic Bottle
  We present quantitative measurements of the spatial density profile of Bose-Einstein condensates of sodium atoms confined in a new '4D' magnetic bottle. The condensates are imaged in transmission with near resonant laser light. We demonstrate that the Thomas-Fermi surface of a condensate can be determined to better than 1%. More generally, we obtain excellent agreement with mean-field theory. We conclude that precision measurements of atomic scattering lengths and interactions between phase separated cold atoms in a harmonic trap can be measured with high precision using this method. 
Lene Vestergaard Hau, B.D. Busch, Chien Liu, Zachary Dutton, Michael   M. Burns, and J.A. Golovchenko