ABSTRACT
We study the real-time dynamics of vortices in a large elongated Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of sodium atoms using a stroboscopic technique. Vortices are produced via the Kibble-Zurek mechanism in a quench across the BEC transition and they slowly precess keeping their orientation perpendicular to the long axis of the trap as expected for solitonic vortices in a highly anisotropic condensate. Good agreement with theoretical predictions is found for the precession period as a function of the orbit amplitude and the number of condensed atoms. In configurations with two or more vortices, we see signatures of vortex-vortex interaction in the shape and visibility of the orbits. In addition, when more than two vortices are present, their decay is faster than the thermal decay observed for one or two vortices. The possible role of vortex reconnection processes is discussed.
ABSTRACT
We study the transport dynamics of matter-waves in the presence of disorder and nonlinearity. An atomic Bose-Einstein condensate that is localized in a quasiperiodic lattice in the absence of atom-atom interaction shows instead a slow expansion with a subdiffusive behavior when a controlled repulsive interaction is added. The measured features of the subdiffusion are compared to numerical simulations and a heuristic model. The observations confirm the nature of subdiffusion as interaction-assisted hopping between localized states and highlight a role of the spatial correlation of the disorder.
ABSTRACT
We study soliton oscillations in a trapped superfluid Fermi gas across the Bose-Einstein condensate to Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BEC-BCS) crossover. We derive an exact equation for the oscillation period in terms of observable quantities, which we confirm by solving the time-dependent Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations. Hence we reveal the appearance and dynamics of solitons across the crossover, and show that the period dramatically increases as the soliton becomes shallower on the BCS side of the resonance. Finally, we propose an experimental protocol to test our predictions.
ABSTRACT
We study low-momentum excitations of a Bose-Einstein condensate using a novel matter-wave interference technique. In time-of-flight expansion images we observe strong matter-wave fringe patterns. The fringe visibility is a sensitive spectroscopic probe of in-trap phonons and is explained by use of a Bogoliubov excitation projection method applied to the rescaled order parameter of the expanding condensate. Gross-Pitaevskii simulations agree with the experimental data and confirm the validity of the theoretical interpretation. We show that the high sensitivity of this detection scheme gives access to the quantized quasiparticle regime.
ABSTRACT
We measure the response of an elongated Bose-Einstein condensate to a two-photon Bragg pulse. If the duration of the pulse is long, the total momentum transferred to the condensate exhibits a nontrivial behavior which reflects the structure of the underlying Bogoliubov spectrum. It is thus possible to perform a spectroscopic analysis in which axial phonons with a different number of radial nodes are resolved. The local density approximation is shown to fail in this regime, while the observed data agree well with the results of simulations based on the numerical solution of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation.
ABSTRACT
Using density functional theory, we investigate the structure of mixed (3)He(N3)-(4)He(N4) droplets with an embedded impurity (Xe atom or HCN molecule) which pins a quantized vortex line. We find that the dopant+vortex+(4)He(N4) complex, which in a previous work [F. Dalfovo et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 1028 (2000)] was found to be energetically stable below a critical size N(cr), is robust against the addition of 3He. While 3He atoms are distributed along the vortex line and on the surface of the 4He drop, the impurity is mostly coated by 4He atoms. Results for N4 = 500 and a number of 3He atoms ranging from 0 to 100 are presented, and the binding energy of the dopant to the vortex line is determined.
ABSTRACT
We propose an experiment, based on two consecutive Bragg pulses, to measure the momentum distribution of quasiparticle excitations in a trapped Bose gas at low temperature. With the first pulse one generates a bunch of excitations carrying momentum q, whose Doppler line is measured by the second pulse. We show that this experiment can provide direct access to the amplitudes u(q) and v(q) characterizing the Bogoliubov transformations from particles to quasiparticles. We simulate the behavior of the nonuniform gas by numerically solving the time dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation.
ABSTRACT
Using a density functional method, we investigate the properties of liquid 4He droplets doped with atoms (Ne and Xe) and molecules ( SF6 and hydrogen cyanide). We consider the case of droplets having a quantized vortex pinned to the dopant. A liquid-drop formula is proposed that accurately describes the total energy of the complex and allows one to extrapolate the density functional results to large N. For a given impurity, we find that the formation of a dopant+vortex+(4)He(N) complex is energetically favored below a critical size N(cr). Our results support the possibility to observe quantized vortices in helium droplets by means of spectroscopic techniques.
ABSTRACT
We discuss various properties of the ground state of a Bose-condensed dilute gas confined by an external potential. We devote particular attention to the role played by the interaction in determining the kinetic energy of the system and the aspect ratio of the velocity distribution. The structure of the wave function near the classical turning point is discussed and the drawback of the Thomas-Fermi approximation is explicitly pointed out. We consider also states with quantized vorticity and calculate the critical angular velocity for the production of vortices. The presence of vortex states is found to increases the stability of the condensate in the case of attractive interactions.
