Phase Coherence and Superfluid-Insulator Transition in a Disordered Bose-Einstein Condensate
Other Condensed Matter
2009-11-13 v3
Abstract
We have studied the effects of a disordered optical potential on the transport and phase coherence of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of 7Li atoms. At moderate disorder strengths (V_D), we observe inhibited transport and damping of dipole excitations, while in time-of-flight images, random but reproducible interference patterns are observed. In-situ images reveal that the appearance of interference is correlated with density modulation, without complete fragmentation. At higher V_D, the interference contrast diminishes as the BEC fragments into multiple pieces with little phase coherence.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0710.5187,
title = {Phase Coherence and Superfluid-Insulator Transition in a Disordered Bose-Einstein Condensate},
author = {Yong P. Chen and J. Hitchcock and D. Dries and M. Junker and C. Welford and R. G. Hulet},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0710.5187},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
4 pages, 5 figures, distortions in figures 1 and 4 have been fixed in version 3. This paper has been accepted to PRA