ABSTRACT
We report on the experimental observation of scaling in the time evolution following a sudden quench into the vicinity of a quantum critical point. The experimental system, a two-component Bose gas with coherent exchange between the constituents, allows for the necessary high level of control of parameters as well as the access to time-resolved spatial correlation functions. The theoretical analysis reveals that when quenching the system close to the critical point, the energy introduced by the quench leads to a short-time evolution exhibiting crossover reminiscent of the finite-temperature critical properties in the system's universality class. Observing the time evolution after a quench represents a paradigm shift in accessing and probing experimentally universal properties close to a quantum critical point and allows in a new way benchmarking of quantum many-body theory with experiments.
Subject(s)
Models, Theoretical , Quantum Theory , Gases/chemistry , Rubidium/chemistryABSTRACT
Exact solutions of the Schrödinger equation describing a freely expanding Lieb-Liniger gas of delta-interacting bosons in one spatial dimension are constructed. We demonstrate that for any interaction strength the system enters a strongly correlated regime during such expansion. The asymptotic form of the wave function is shown to have the form characteristic for "impenetrable-core" bosons. Exact solutions are obtained by transforming a fully antisymmetric (fermionic) time-dependent wave function that obeys the Schrödinger equation for a free gas. This transformation employs a differential Fermi-Bose mapping operator that depends on the strength of the interaction and the number of particles.
ABSTRACT
We discuss the long-range nature of the molecules produced in recent experiments on molecular Bose-Einstein condensation. The properties of these molecules depend on the full two-body Hamiltonian and not just on the states of the system in the absence of interchannel couplings. The very long-range nature of the state is crucial to the efficiency of production in the experiments. Our many-body treatment of the gas accounts for the full binary physics and describes properly how these molecular condensates can be directly probed.
