Two-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensate under extreme rotation

We show that a Bose-condensed gas, under extreme rotation in a 2D anisotropic trap, forms a novel elongated quantum fluid which has a roton-maxon excitation spectrum. For a sufficiently large interaction strength, the roton energy reaches zero and the system undergoes a second order quantum transition to the state with a periodic structure-rows of vortices. The number of rows increases with the interaction, and the vortices eventually form a triangular Abrikosov lattice.     

Spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensate under rotation

We examine the combined effects of Rashba spin-orbit (SO) coupling and rotation on trapped spinor Bose-Einstein condensates. The nature of single particle states is thoroughly examined in the Landau level basis and is shown to support the formation of a half-quantum vortex. In the presence of weak s-wave interactions, the ground state at strong SO coupling develops ringlike structures with domains whose number shows step behavior with increasing rotation. For the fast rotation case, the vortex pattern favors a triangular lattice, accompanied by density depletion in the central region and a weakened Skyrmionic character as the SO coupling is enhanced. Giant vortex formation is facilitated when SO coupling and rotation are both strong.     

Breaking of chiral symmetry and spontaneous rotation in a spinor Bose-Einstein condensate

We show that a spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate with ferromagnetic interactions spontaneously generates a topological spin texture, in which the m = +/- 1 components of the magnetic sublevels form vortices with opposite circulations. This phenomenon originates from an interplay between ferromagnetic interactions and spin conservation.     

Chaos in a Bose-Einstein condensate

It is demonstrated that Smale-horseshoe chaos exists in the time evolution of the one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensate driven by time-periodic harmonic or inverted-harmonic potential.A formally exact solution of the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation is constructed,which describes the matter shock waves with chaotic or periodic amplitudes and phases.     

Excitation spectrum of a Bose-Einstein condensate

We report a measurement of the excitation spectrum omega(k) and the static structure factor S(k) of a Bose-Einstein condensate. The excitation spectrum displays a linear phonon regime, as well as a parabolic single-particle regime. The linear regime provides an upper limit for the superfluid critical velocity, by the Landau criterion. The excitation spectrum agrees well with the Bogoliubov spectrum in the local density approximation, even close to the long-wavelength limit of the region of applicability. Feynman's relation between omega(k) and S(k) is verified, within an overall constant.     

Controlled collapse of a Bose-Einstein condensate

The point of instability of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) due to attractive interactions was studied. Stable 85Rb BECs were created and then caused to collapse by slowly changing the atom-atom interaction from repulsive to attractive using a Feshbach resonance. At a critical value, an abrupt transition was observed in which atoms were ejected from the condensate. By measuring the onset of this transition as a function of number and attractive interaction strength, we determined the stability condition to be N(absolute value of a) / a(ho) = 0.459+/-0.012+/-0.054, slightly lower than the predicted value of 0.574.     

Explosion of a collapsing Bose-Einstein condensate

We show that elastic collisions between atoms in a Bose-Einstein condensate with attractive interactions can lead to an explosion that ejects a large fraction of the collapsing condensate. We study variationally the dynamics of this explosion and find excellent agreement with recent experiments on magnetically trapped 85Rb. We also determine the energy and angular distribution of the ejected atoms during the collapse.     

Bose-Einstein condensate in a random potential

An optical speckle potential is used to investigate the static and dynamic properties of a Bose-Einstein condensate in the presence of disorder. With small levels of disorder, stripes are observed in the expanded density profile and strong damping of dipole and quadrupole oscillations is seen. Uncorrelated frequency shifts of the two modes are measured and are explained using a sum-rules approach and by the numerical solution of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation.     

Knots in a spinor Bose-Einstein condensate

We show that knots of spin textures can be created in the polar phase of a spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate, and discuss experimental schemes for their generation and probe, together with their lifetime.     

Photoassociation of sodium in a Bose-Einstein condensate

We form ultracold Na2 molecules by single-photon photoassociation of a Bose-Einstein condensate, measuring the photoassociation rate, linewidth, and light shift of the J = 1, v = 135 vibrational level of the A1 Sigma (+)(u) molecular state. The photoassociation rate constant increases linearly with intensity, even where it is predicted that many-body effects might limit the rate. Our observations are in good agreement with a two-body theory having no free parameters.     

Dynamical properties of a rotating Bose-Einstein condensate

Within a variational approach to solving the Gross-Pitaevskii equation we investigate dynamical properties of a rotating Bose-Einstein condensate confined in an anharmonic trap. In particular, we calculate the eigenfrequencies of low-energy excitations out of the equilibrium state and the aspect ratio of the condensate widths during the free expansion.     

Texture control in a pseudospin Bose-Einstein condensate

We describe a wave function engineering approach to the formation of textures in nonrotated multicomponent Bose-Einstein condensates. With numerical simulations of a viable two-component condensate experiment, we demonstrate the formation of a ballistically?expanding regular lattice?texture, composed of half-quantum vortices and spin-2 textures. The formation is described by a linear interference process in which the geometry and phase of three initially separated wave packets provide deterministic control over the resulting lattice?texture.     

Atom-molecule dark states in a Bose-Einstein condensate

We have created a dark quantum superposition state of a Rb Bose-Einstein condensate and a degenerate gas of Rb2 ground-state molecules in a specific rovibrational state using two-color photo-association. As a signature for the decoupling of this coherent atom-molecule gas from the light field, we observe a striking suppression of photo-association loss. In our experiment the maximal molecule population in the dark state is limited to about 100 Rb2 molecules due to laser induced decay. The experimental findings can be well described by a simple three mode model.     

周期驱动玻色-爱因斯坦凝聚系统的棘齿效应

研究了周期脉冲驱动下的玻色-爱因斯坦凝聚体系（BEC）的动力学演化.其中着重考虑了BEC原子间的非线性相互作用对量子棘齿效应的影响.数值计算结果表明,较弱的非线性相互作用可以减弱定向动量流的强度.而较强的非线性相互作用则会使量子棘齿效应消失甚至发生反转,即系统会出现反向的定向动量流,而且随着时间的演化,动量流会表现出微弱的饱和趋势.计算还发现,高阶量子共振下系统的棘齿效应变得很不明显,而且外部驱动势的周期噪声很容易破坏体系的棘齿效应. 关键词： 玻色-爱因斯坦凝聚 量子混沌 量子共振 棘齿效应     

Manipulating a Bose-Einstein condensate with a single photon

We propose a method to create macroscopic superpositions, so-called Schr?dinger cat states, of different motional states of an ideal Bose-Einstein condensate. The scheme is based on the scattering of a freely expanding condensate by the light field of a high-finesse optical cavity in a quantum superposition state of different photon numbers. The atom-photon interaction creates an entangled state of the motional state of the condensate and the photon number, which can be converted into a pure atomic Schr?dinger cat state by operations only acting on the cavity field. We discuss in detail the fully quantised theory and propose an experimental procedure to implement the scheme using short coherent light pulses. Received 26 June 2000 and Received in final form 2nd October 2000     

Controllable soliton emission from a Bose-Einstein condensate

We demonstrate, through numerical simulations, the controllable emission of matter-wave bursts from a Bose-Einstein condensate in a shallow optical dipole trap. The process is triggered by spatial variations of the scattering length along the trapping axis. In our approach, the outcoupling mechanisms are atom-atom interactions and thus, the trap remains unaltered. Once emitted, the matter wave forms a robust soliton. We calculate analytically the parameters for the experimental implementation of these matter-wave bursts of solitons.     

Nonautonomous deformed solitons in a Bose-Einstein condensate

We study exact single-soliton solutions of an attractive Bose-Einstein condensate governed by a one-dimensional nonautonomous Gross-Pitaevskii system. For several different forms of time-dependent atom-atom interaction and external parabolic potential which satisfy the exact integrability scenario, we construct a set of new analytical nonautonomous deformed-soliton solutions, including the macroscopic wave function and the position of soliton＇s center of mass. The soliton characteristics are modulated by the external field parameters and deformation factors related to the number of the condensed atoms and the initial conditions. The results suggest a simple and effective method for experimentally generating matter-wave deformed solitons and manipulating their motions.     

High-resolution magnetometry with a spinor Bose-Einstein condensate

We demonstrate a precise magnetic microscope based on direct imaging of the Larmor precession of a 87Rb spinor Bose-Einstein condensate. This magnetometer attains a field sensitivity of 8.3 pT/Hz1/2 over a measurement area of 120 microm2, an improvement over the low-frequency field sensitivity of modern SQUID magnetometers. The achieved phase sensitivity is close to the atom shot-noise limit, estimated as 0.15 pT/Hz1/2 for a unity duty cycle measurement, suggesting the possibilities of spatially resolved spin-squeezed magnetometry. This magnetometer marks a significant application of degenerate atomic gases to metrology.     

Observation of molecules produced from a Bose-Einstein condensate

Molecules are created from a Bose-Einstein condensate of atomic 87Rb using a Feshbach resonance. A Stern-Gerlach field is applied, in order to spatially separate the molecules from the remaining atoms. For detection, the molecules are converted back into atoms, again using the Feshbach resonance. The measured position of the molecules yields their magnetic moment. This quantity strongly depends on the magnetic field, thus revealing an avoided crossing of two bound states at a field value slightly below the Feshbach resonance. This avoided crossing is exploited to trap the molecules in one dimension.