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arXiv:0902.3980 · Physical Review Letters

Causality in Condensates: Gray Solitons as Relics of BEC Formation

Wojciech Hubert Zurek

Published Mar 12, 2009• 119 citations
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Abstract

Symmetry breaking during phase transitions can lead to the formation of topological defects (such as vortex lines in superfluids). However, the usually studied Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) have the shape of a cigar, a geometry that impedes vortex formation, survival, and detection. I show that, in elongated traps, one can expect the formation of gray solitons (long-lived, nontopological "phase defects") as a result of the same mechanism. Their number will rise approximately in proportion to the transition rate. This steep rise is due to the increasing size of the region of the BEC cigar where the phase of the condensate wave function is chosen locally (rather than passed on from the already formed BEC).

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.102.105702

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Symmetry breaking during phase transitions can lead to the formation of topological defects (such as vortex lines in superfluids). However, the usually studied Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) have the shape of a cigar, a geometry that impedes vortex formation, survival, and detection. I show that, in elongated traps, one can expect the formation of gray solitons (long-lived, nontopological "phase defects") as a result of the same mechanism. Their number will rise approximately in proportion to the transition rate. This steep rise is due to the increasing size of the region of the BEC cigar where the phase of the condensate wave function is chosen locally (rather than passed on from the already formed BEC).
We observe solitonic vortices in an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) after free expansion. Clear signatures of the nature of such defects are the twisted planar density depletion around the vortex line, observed in absorption images, and the double dislocation in the interference pattern obtained through homodyne techniques. Both methods allow us to determine the sign of the quantized circulation. Experimental observations agree with numerical simulations. These solitonic vortices are the decay product of phase defects of the BEC order parameter spontaneously created after a rapid quench across the BEC transition in a cigar-shaped harmonic trap and are shown to have a very long lifetime.
Phase transitions abound in the physical world, from the subatomic length scales of quark condensation to the decoupling forces in the early universe. In the Bose-Einstein condensation phase transition, a gas of trapped bosonic atoms is cooled to a critical temperature. Below this temperature, a macroscopic number of atoms suddenly starts to occupy a single quantum state; these atoms comprise the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). The dynamics of the BEC phase transition are the focus of this dissertation and the experiments described here have provided new information on the details of BEC formation. New theoretical developments are proving to be valuable tools for describing BEC phase transition dynamics and interpreting new experimental results. With their amenability to optical manipulation and probing along with the advent of new microscopic theories, BECs provide an important new avenue for gaining insight into the universal dynamics of phase transitions in general.Spontaneous symmetry breaking in the system's order parameter may be one result of cooling through a phase transition. A potential consequence of this is the spontaneous formation of topological defects, which in a BEC appear as vortices. We experimentally observed and characterized the spontaneous formation of vortices during BEC growth. We attribute vortex creation to coherence length limitations during the initial stages of the phase transition. Parallel to these experimental observations, theory collaborators have used the Stochastic Gross-Pitaevski Equation formalism to simulate the growth of a condensate from a thermal cloud. The experimental and theoretical statistical results of the spontaneous formation of vortex cores during the growth of the condensate are in good quantitative agreement with one another, supporting our understanding of the dynamics of the phase transition. We believe that our results are also qualitatively consistent with the Kibble-Zurek mechanism, a universal model for topological defect formation.Ultimately, our understanding of the dynamics of the BEC phase transition may lead to a broader understanding of phase transitions in general, and provide new insight into the development of coherence in numerous systems.
Experimental preparation of multispecies Bose-Einstein condensates should permit the creation of topologically stable defects beyond the superfluid vortex. But the coldness and isolation of condensates should also permit the survival for observable durations of ``pseudodefects,'' such as the one-dimensional dark soliton: localized structures related to a defect but not topologically stable. In this paper we investigate the viability of pseudodefects beyond one dimension, by examining ``wave-function monopoles'' in two-species condensates in two dimensions. We identify interesting instabilities, including a ``dancing mode'' for monopoles of higher winding number, and (in a one-dimensional limit) ``superfluid roulette.''
In a cigar shaped Bose-Einstein condensate, explicit solutions of the coupled mean-field equations, describing defect-grey soliton dynamics are obtained, demonstrating the coexistence of grey soliton and a localized defect. Unlike the case of dark soliton, where the defect trapping center has vanishing superfluid density, the moving grey soliton necessarily possesses a finite superfluid component at the defect location. The wave vector of the impurity is controlled by the velocity of the grey soliton, which has an upper bound. It is found that the presence of the impurity lowers the speed of the grey soliton, as compared to the defect free case, where it can reach the sound velocity. The grey soliton's energy gets substantially modified through its interaction with the defect, opening up the possibility of its control through defect dynamics.
The Gross-Pitaevskii equation for a Bose-Einstein condensate confined in an elongated cigar-shaped trap is reduced to an effective system of nonlinear equations depending on only one space coordinate along the trap axis. The radial distribution of the condensate density and its radial velocity are approximated by Gaussian functions with real and imaginary exponents, respectively, with parameters depending on the axial coordinate and time. The effective one-dimensional system is applied to a description of the ground state of the condensate, to dark and bright solitons, to the sound and radial compression waves propagating in a dense condensate, and to weakly nonlinear waves in repulsive condensate. In the low-density limit our results reproduce the known formulas. In the high-density case our description of solitons goes beyond the standard approach based on the nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation. The dispersion relations for the sound and radial compression waves are obtained in a wide region of values of the condensate density. The Korteweg--de Vries equation for weakly nonlinear waves is derived and the existence of bright solitons on a constant background is predicted for a dense enough condensate with a repulsive interaction between the atoms.
We investigate macroscopic tunneling from an elongated quasi-one-dimensional trap, forming a ``cigar-shaped'' Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). Using a recently developed formalism we get the leading analytical approximation for the right-hand side of the potential wall, i.e., outside the trap, and a formalism based on Wigner functions, for the left side of the potential wall, i.e., inside the BEC. We then present accomplished results of numerical calculations, which show a ``blip'' in the particle density traveling with an asymptotic shock velocity, as resulted from previous works on a dotlike trap but with significant differences from the latter. Inside the BEC a pattern of a traveling dispersive shock wave is revealed. In the attractive case, we find trains of bright solitons frozen near the boundary.