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Observation of Quantum Equilibration in Dilute Bose Gases

Quantum Gases 2016-12-14 v3

Abstract

We investigate experimentally the dynamical relaxation of a non-integrable quantum many-body system to its equilibrium state. A Bose-Einstein condensate is loaded into the first excited band of an optical lattice and let to evolve up to a few hundreds of milliseconds. Signs of quantum equilibration are observed. There is a period of time, roughly 40 ms long, during which both the aspect ratio of the cloud and its momentum distribution remain constant. In particular, the momentum distribution has a flat top and is not a Gaussian thermal distribution. After this period, the cloud becomes classical as its momentum distribution becomes Gaussian.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1604.06969,
  title  = {Observation of Quantum Equilibration in Dilute Bose Gases},
  author = {Linxiao Niu and Pengju Tang and Baoguo Yang and Xuzong Chen and Biao Wu and Xiaoji Zhou},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1604.06969},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

6 pages, 4 figures