No Arabic abstract
We report on the formation of ultra-cold Na$_2$ molecules using single-photon photoassociation of a Bose-Einstein condensate. The photoassociation rate, linewidth and light shift of the J=1, $v=135$ vibrational level of the mterm{A}{1}{+}{u} molecular bound state have been measured. We find that the photoassociation rate constant increases linearly with intensity, even where it is predicted that many-body effects might limit the rate. Our observations are everywhere in good agreement with a two-body theory having no free parameters.
We investigate the collective excitations of a one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) with repulsive interaction between atoms in a quadratic plus quartic trap. By using the variational approach, the coupled equations of motion for the center-of-mass coordinate of the condensate and its width are derived. Then, two low-energy excitation modes are obtained analytically. The frequency shift induced by the anharmonic distortion, and the collapse and revival of the collective excitations, which originate from the nonlinear coupling between the two modes, are discussed.
Based on a velocity formula derived by matched asymptotic expansion, we investigate the dynamics of a circular vortex ring in an axisymmetric Bose-Einstein condensate in the Thomas-Fermi limit. The trajectory for an axisymmetrically placed and oriented vortex ring is entirely determined, revealing that the vortex ring generally precesses in condensate. The linear instability due to bending waves is investigated both numerically and analytically. General stability boundaries for various perturbed wavenumbers are computed. In particular, the excitation spectrum and the absolutely stable region for the static ring are analytically determined.
Bose-Einstein condensates have been produced in an optical box trap. This novel optical trap type has strong confinement in two directions comparable to that which is possible in an optical lattice, yet produces individual condensates rather than the thousands typical of a lattice. The box trap is integrated with single atom detection capability, paving the way for studies of quantum atom statistics.
Mobile impurities in a Bose-Einstein condensate form quasiparticles called polarons. Here, we show that two such polarons can bind to form a bound bipolaron state. Its emergence is caused by an induced nonlocal interaction mediated by density oscillations in the condensate, and we derive using field theory an effective Schrodinger equation describing this for arbitrarily strong impurity-boson interaction. We furthermore compare with Quantum Monte Carlo simulations finding remarkable agreement, which underlines the predictive power of the developed theory. It is found that bipolaron formation typically requires strong impurity interactions beyond the validity of more commonly used weak-coupling approaches that lead to local Yukawa-type interactions. We predict that the bipolarons are observable in present experiments and describe a procedure to probe their properties.
Surface modes in a Bose-Einstein condensate of sodium atoms have been studied. We observed excitations of standing and rotating quadrupolar and octopolar modes. The modes were excited with high spatial and temporal resolution using the optical dipole force of a rapidly scanning laser beam. This novel technique is very flexible and should be useful for the study of rotating Bose-Einstein condensates and vortices.