Spatial resolution of spin waves in an ultracold gas.

We present the first spatially resolved images of spin waves in a gas. The complete longitudinal and transverse spin field as a function of time and space is reconstructed. Frequencies and damping rates for a standing-wave mode are extracted and compared with theory.

Longitudinal spin waves in a dilute bose gas.

We present a kinetic theory for a dilute noncondensed Bose gas of two-level atoms that predicts the transient spin segregation observed in a recent experiment. The underlying mechanism driving spin currents in the gas is due to a mean-field effect arising from the quantum interference between the direct and exchange scattering of atoms in different spin states. We numerically solve the spin Boltzmann equation, using a one-dimensional model, and find excellent agreement with experimental data.

Dynamical instability of a condensate induced by a rotating thermal gas.

We study surface modes of the condensate in the presence of a rotating thermal cloud in an axisymmetric trap. By considering collisions that transfer atoms between the condensate and the noncondensate, we find that m>0 modes, which rotate in the same sense as the thermal cloud, damp less strongly than m<0 modes, where m is the polarity of the excitation. We show that above a critical angular rotation frequency, equivalent to the Landau stability criterion, m>0 modes become dynamically unstable, leading to the possibility of vortex nucleation. We also generalize our stability analysis to treat the case where the stationary state of the condensate already possesses a single vortex.

Bose-Einstein condensation of dilute magnons in TlCuCl3.

The recent observation [A. Oosawa et al., J. Phys. Condens. Matter 11, 265 (1999)] of the field-induced Neel ordering in the spin-gap magnetic compound TlCuCl3 is interpreted as a Bose-Einstein condensation of magnons. A Hartree-Fock-type calculation based on this picture is shown to describe the temperature dependence of the magnetization well.