Controlled Collapse of a Bose-Einstein Condensate
Statistical Mechanics
2009-11-07 v1
Abstract
The point of instability of a Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC) due to attractive interactions was studied. Stable 85-Rb BECs were created and then caused to collapse by slowly changing the atom-atom interaction from repulsive to attractive using a Feshbach resonance. At a critical value, an abrupt transition was observed in which atoms were ejected from the condensate. By measuring the onset of this transition as a funstion of number and attractive interactions strength, we determined the stability condition to be N|a|/(aho)=0.461(12)(54), slightly lower than the predicted value of 0.574.
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0102116,
title = {Controlled Collapse of a Bose-Einstein Condensate},
author = {J. L. Roberts and N. R. Claussen and S. L. Cornish and E. A. Donley and E. A. Cornell and C. E. Wieman},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0102116},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
4 pages, 2 figures (postscript)