Spontaneous symmetry breaking of population in a nonadiabatically driven atomic trap: an Ising-class phase transition |
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Authors: | Kim Kihwan Heo Myoung-Sun Lee Ki-Hwan Jang Kiyoub Noh Heung-Ryoul Kim Doochul Jhe Wonho |
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Affiliation: | School of Physics, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-747, Korea. |
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Abstract: | We have observed spontaneous symmetry breaking of the population of Brownian particles between two moving potentials in the spatiotemporally symmetric system. Cold atoms preferentially occupy one of the dynamic double-well potentials, produced in the parametrically driven dissipative magneto-optical trap far from equilibrium, above a critical number of atoms. We find that the population asymmetry, which may be interpreted as the biased Brownian motion, can be qualitatively described by the mean-field Ising-class phase transition. This in situ study may be useful for investigation of dynamic phase transition or temporal behavior of critical phenomena. |
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