No Arabic abstract
A magnetically trapped 87Rb Bose-Einstein condensate is used as a sensitive probe of short-range electrical forces. In particular, the electric polarization of, and the subsequent electric field generated by, 87Rb adsorbates on conducting and insulating surfaces is measured by characterizing perturbations to the magnetic trapping potential using high-Q condensate excitations. The nature of the alterations to the electrical properties of Rb adsorbates is studied on titanium (metal) and silicon (semiconductor) surfaces, which exhibit nearly identical properties, and on glass (insulator), which displays a smaller transitory electrical effect. The limits of this technique in detecting electrical fields and ramifications for measurements of short-range forces near surfaces are discussed.
The theory of vortex motion in a dilute superfluid of inhomogeneous density demands a boundary layer approach, in which different approximation schemes are employed close to and far from the vortex, and their results matched smoothly together. The most difficult part of this procedure is the hydrodynamic problem of the velocity field many healing lengths away from the vortex core. This paper derives and exploits an exact solution of this problem in the two-dimensional case of a linear trapping potential, which is an idealization of the surface region of a large condensate. It thereby shows that vortices in inhomogeneous clouds are effectively dressed by a non-trivial distortion of their flow fields; that image vortices are not relevant to Thomas-Fermi surfaces; and that for condensates large compared to their surface depths, the energetic barrier to vortex penetration disappears at the Landau critical velocity for surface modes.
In this paper, decoherence in a system consisting of two Bose-Einstein condensates is investigated analytically. It is indicated that decoherence can be controlled through manipulating the interaction between the system and environment. The influence of the decoherence on quantum coherent atomic tunneling (AT) between two condensates with arbitrary initial states is studied in detail. Analytic expressions of the population difference (PD) and the AT current between two condensates are found. It is shown that the decoherence leads to the decay of the PD and the suppression of the AT current.
We study tunneling dynamics of atomic pairs in Bose-Einstein condensates with Feshbach resonances. It is shown that the tunneling of the atomic pairs depends on not only the tunneling coupling between the atomic condensate and the molecular condensate, but also the inter-atomic nonlinear interactions and the initial number of atoms in these condensates. It is found that in addition to oscillating tunneling current between the atomic condensate and the molecular condensate, the nonlinear atomic-pair tunneling dynamics sustains a self-locked population imbalance: macroscopic quantum self-trapping effect. Influence of decoherence induced by non-condensate atoms on tunneling dynamics is investigated. It is shown that decoherence suppresses atomic-pair tunneling.
We report adjustable magnetic `bouncing and focusing of a dilute $^{87}$Rb Bose gas. Both the condensate production and manipulation are realised using a particularly straight-forward apparatus. The bouncing region is comprised of approximately concentric ellipsoidal magnetic equipotentials with a centre that can be adjusted vertically. We extend, and discuss the limitations of, simple Thomas-Fermi and Monte-Carlo theoretical models for the bouncing, which at present find close agreement with the condensates evolution. Very strong focusing has been inferred and the observation of atomic matter-wave diffraction should be possible. Prospects look bright for applications in matter-wave atom-optics, due to the very smooth nature of the mirror.
Gaseous Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) have become an important test bed for studying the dynamics of quantized vortices. In this work we use two-photon Doppler sensitive Bragg scattering to study the rotation of sodium BECs. We analyze the microscopic flow field and present laboratory measurements of the coarse-grained velocity profile. Unlike time-of-flight imaging, Bragg scattering is sensitive to the direction of rotation and therefore to the phase of the condensate. In addition, we have non-destructively probed the vortex flow field using a sequence of two Bragg pulses.