We analyze free expansion of a trapped one-dimensional Bose gas after a sudden release from the confining trap potential. By using the stationary phase and local density approximations, we show that the long-time asymptotic density profile and the mo
mentum distribution of the gas are determined by the initial distribution of Bethe rapidities (quasimomenta) and hence can be obtained from the solutions to the Lieb-Liniger equations in the thermodynamic limit. For expansion from a harmonic trap, and in the limits of very weak and very strong interactions, we recover the self-similar scaling solutions known from the hydrodynamic approach. For all other power-law traps and arbitrary interaction strengths, the expansion is not self-similar and shows strong dependence of the density profile evolution on the trap anharmonicity. We also characterize dynamical fermionization of the expanding cloud in terms of correlation functions describing phase and density fluctuations.
A fundamental property of a three-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) is long-range coherence, however, in systems of lower dimensionality, not only is the long range coherence destroyed, but additional states of matter are predicted to exist.
One such state is a `transverse condensate, first predicted by van Druten and Ketterle [Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 549 (1997)], in which the gas condenses in the transverse dimensions of a highly anisotropic trap while remaining thermal in the longitudinal dimension. Here we detect the transition from a three-dimensional thermal gas to a gas undergoing transverse condensation by probing Hanbury Brown--Twiss correlations.
We analyze the two-body momentum correlation function for a uniform weakly interacting one-dimensional Bose gas. We show that the strong positive correlation between opposite momenta, expected in a Bose-Einstein condensate with a true long-range orde
r, almost vanishes in a phase-fluctuating quasicondensate where the long-range order is destroyed. Using the Luttinger liquid approach, we derive an analytic expression for the momentum correlation function in the quasicondensate regime, showing (i) the reduction and broadening of the opposite-momentum correlations (compared to the singular behavior in a true condensate) and (ii) an emergence of anticorrelations at small momenta. We also numerically investigate the momentum correlations in the crossover between the quasicondensate and the ideal Bose-gas regimes using a classical field approach and show how the anticorrelations gradually disappear in the ideal-gas limit.
The Cauchy-Schwarz (CS) inequality -- one of the most widely used and important inequalities in mathematics -- can be formulated as an upper bound to the strength of correlations between classically fluctuating quantities. Quantum mechanical correlat
ions can, however, exceed classical bounds.Here we realize four-wave mixing of atomic matter waves using colliding Bose-Einstein condensates, and demonstrate the violation of a multimode CS inequality for atom number correlations in opposite zones of the collision halo. The correlated atoms have large spatial separations and therefore open new opportunities for extending fundamental quantum-nonlocality tests to ensembles of massive particles.
We analytically calculate the spatial nonlocal pair correlation function for an interacting uniform 1D Bose gas at finite temperature and propose an experimental method to measure nonlocal correlations. Our results span six different physical realms,
including the weakly and strongly interacting regimes. We show explicitly that the characteristic correlation lengths are given by one of four length scales: the thermal de Broglie wavelength, the mean interparticle separation, the healing length, or the phase coherence length. In all regimes, we identify the profound role of interactions and find that under certain conditions the pair correlation may develop a global maximum at a finite interparticle separation due to the competition between repulsive interactions and thermal effects.
We develop a pairing mean-field theory to describe the quantum dynamics of the dissociation of molecular Bose-Einstein condensates into their constituent bosonic or fermionic atoms. We apply the theory to one, two, and three-dimensional geometries an
d analyze the role of dimensionality on the atom production rate as a function of the dissociation energy. As well as determining the populations and coherences of the atoms, we calculate the correlations that exist between atoms of opposite momenta, including the column density correlations in 3D systems. We compare the results with those of the undepleted molecular field approximation and argue that the latter is most reliable in fermionic systems and in lower dimensions. In the bosonic case we compare the pairing mean-field results with exact calculations using the positive-$P$ stochastic method and estimate the range of validity of the pairing mean-field theory. Comparisons with similar first-principle simulations in the fermionic case are currently not available, however, we argue that the range of validity of the present approach should be broader for fermions than for bosons in the regime where Pauli blocking prevents complete depletion of the molecular condensate.
