No Arabic abstract
Understanding the ground state of many-body fluids is a central question of statistical physics. Usually for weakly interacting Bose gases, most particles occupy the same state, corresponding to a Bose--Einstein condensate. However, another scenario may occur with the emergence of several, macroscopically populated single-particle states. The observation of such fragmented states remained elusive so far, due to their fragility to external perturbations. Here we produce a 3-fragment condensate for a spin 1 gas of $sim 100$ atoms, with anti-ferromagnetic interactions and vanishing collective spin. Using a spin-resolved detection approaching single-atom resolution, we show that the reconstructed many-body state is quasi-pure, while one-body observables correspond to a mixed state. Our results highlight the interplay between symmetry and interaction to develop entanglement in a quantum system.
The Dicke model and the superradiance of two-level systems in a radiation field have many applications. Recently, a Dicke quantum phase transition has been realized with a Bose-Einstein condensate in a cavity. We numerically solve the many-body Schrodinger equation and study correlations in the ground state of interacting bosons in a cavity as a function of the strength of a driving laser. Beyond a critical strength, the bosons occupy multiple modes macroscopically while remaining superradiant. This fragmented superradiance can be detected by analyzing the variance of single-shot measurements.
Atom interferometry with high visibility is of high demand for precision measurements. Here, a parallel multicomponent interferometer is achieved by preparing a spin-$2$ Bose-Einstein condensate of $^{87}$Rb atoms confined in a hybrid magneto-optical trap. After the preparation of a spinor Bose-Einstein condensate with spin degrees of freedom entangled, we observe four spatial interference patterns in each run of measurements corresponding to four hyperfine states we mainly populate in the experiment. The atomic populations in different Zeeman sublevels are made controllably using magnetic-field-pulse induced Majorana transitions. The spatial separation of atom cloud in different hyperfine states is reached by Stern-Gerlach momentum splitting. The high visibility of the interference fringes is reached by designing a proper overlap of the interfering wave packets. Due to uncontrollable phase accumulation in Majorana transitions, the phase of each individual spin is found to be subjected to unreproducible shift in multiple experimental runs. However, the relative phase across different spins is stable, paving a way towards noise-resilient multicomponent parallel interferometers.
We investigate the internal dynamics of the spinor Bose-Einstein Condensates subject to dissipation by solving the Lindblad master equation. It is shown that for the condensates without dissipation its dynamics always evolve along specific orbital in the phase space of ($n_0$, $theta$) and display three kinds of dynamical properties including Josephson-like oscillation, self-trapping-like oscillation and running phase. In contrast, the condensates subject to dissipation will not evolve along the specific dynamical orbital. If component-1 and component-(-1) dissipate in different rates, the magnetization $m$ will not conserve and the system transits between different dynamical regions. The dynamical properties can be exhibited in the phase space of ($n_0$, $theta$, $m$).
We measure the mass, gap, and magnetic moment of a magnon in the ferromagnetic $F=1$ spinor Bose-Einstein condensate of $^{87}$Rb. We find an unusually heavy magnon mass of $1.038(2)_mathrm{stat}(8)_mathrm{sys}$ times the atomic mass, as determined by interfering standing and running coherent magnon waves within the dense and trapped condensed gas. This measurement is shifted significantly from theoretical estimates. The magnon energy gap of $htimes 2.5(1)_mathrm{stat}(2)_mathrm{sys};mathrm{Hz}$ and the effective magnetic moment of $-1.04(2)_mathrm{stat}(8),mu_textrm{bare}$ times the atomic magnetic moment are consistent with mean-field predictions. The nonzero energy gap arises from magnetic dipole-dipole interactions.
One of the excitements generated by the cold atom systems is the possibility to realize, and explore, varied topological phases stemming from multi-component nature of the condensate. Popular examples are the antiferromagnetic (AFM) and the ferromagnetic (FM) phases in the three-component atomic condensate with effective spin-1, to which different topological manifolds can be assigned. It follows, from consideration of homotopy, that different sorts of topological defects will be stable in each manifold. For instance, Skyrmionic texture is believed to be a stable topological object in two-dimensional AFM spin-1 condensate. Countering such common perceptions, here we show on the basis of a new wave function decomposition scheme that there is no physical parameter regime wherein the temporal dynamics of spin-1 condensate can be described solely within AFM or FM manifold. Initial state of definite topological number prepared entirely within one particular phase must immediately evolve into a mixed state. Accordingly, the very notion of topology and topological stability within the sub-manifold of AFM or FM become invalid. Numerical simulation reveals the linear Zeeman effect to be an efficient catalyst to extract the alternate component from an initial topological object prepared entirely within one particular sub-manifold, serving as a potential new tool for topology engineering in multi-component Bose-Einstein condensates.