Observation of dynamical instability for a Bose-Einstein condensate in a moving 1D optical lattice
Soft Condensed Matter
2009-11-10 v1
Abstract
We have experimentally studied the unstable dynamics of a harmonically trapped Bose-Einstein condensate loaded into a 1D moving optical lattice. The lifetime of the condensate in such a potential exhibits a dramatic dependence on the quasimomentum state. This is unambiguously attributed to the onset of dynamical instability, after a comparison with the predictions of the Gross-Pitaevskii theory. Deeply in the unstable region we observe the rapid appearance of complex structures in the atomic density profile, as a consequence of the condensate phase uniformity breakdown.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0404045,
title = {Observation of dynamical instability for a Bose-Einstein condensate in a moving 1D optical lattice},
author = {L. Fallani and L. De Sarlo and J. E. Lye and M. Modugno and R. Saers and C. Fort and M. Inguscio},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0404045},
year = {2009}
}