Coherent quantum depletion of an interacting atom condensate.

ABSTRACT: Sufficiently strong interactions promote coherent quantum transitions in spite of thermalization and losses, which are the adversaries of delicate effects such as reversibility and correlations. In atomic Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs), strong atom-atom interactions can eject atoms from the BEC to the normal component, yielding quantum depletion instead of temperature depletion. A recent experiment has already been verified to overcome losses. Here I show that it also achieves coherent quantum-depletion dynamics in a BEC swept fast enough from weak to strong atom-atom interactions. The elementary coherent process first excites the normal component into a liquid state that evolves into a spherical shell state, where the atom occupation peaks at a finite momentum to shield 50% of the BEC atoms from annihilation. The identified coherent processes resemble ultrafast semiconductor excitations expanding the scope of BEC explorations to many-body non-equilibrium studies.

SUBMITTER: Kira M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4382704 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature