  The recombination of two split Bose-Einstein condensates on an atom chip is
shown to result in heating which depends on the relative phase of the two
condensates. This heating reduces the number of condensate atoms between 10 and
40% and provides a robust way to read out the phase of an atom interferometer
without the need for ballistic expansion. The heating may be caused by the
dissipation of dark solitons created during the merging of the condensates.
