Turbulence in a magneto-optical trap


Abstract in English

A large number of $^{87}$Rb atoms (up to $1.5 times 10^{11}$) is confined and cooled to $sim 200~mu$K in a magneto-optical trap. The resulting cloud of atoms exhibits spatio-temporal instabilities leading to chaotic behaviour resembling a turbulent flow of fluid. We apply the methods of the turbulence theory based on the structure functions analysis to classify and quantify the different degrees of excitation of turbulence, including its scaling and morphological properties in the moving cloud images.

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