English

Onset of a modulational instability in trapped dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates

Quantum Gases 2018-01-31 v3 Atomic Physics

Abstract

We explore the phase diagram of a finite-sized dysprosium dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate in a cylindrical harmonic trap. We monitor the final state after the scattering length is lowered from the repulsive BEC regime to the quantum droplet regime. Either an adiabatic transformation between a BEC and a quantum droplet is obtained or, above a critical trap aspect ratio λc=1.87(14)\lambda_{\rm c}=1.87(14), a modulational instability results in the formation of multiple droplets. This is in full agreement with the predicted structure of the phase diagram with a crossover region below λc\lambda_{\rm c} and a multistable region above. Our results provide the missing piece connecting the previously explored regimes resulting in a single or multiple dipolar quantum droplets.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1711.07275,
  title  = {Onset of a modulational instability in trapped dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates},
  author = {Igor Ferrier-Barbut and Matthias Wenzel and Matthias Schmitt and Fabian Böttcher and Tilman Pfau},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1711.07275},
  year   = {2018}
}