arXiv:1002.0195 · Physical Review Letters

First and Second Sound in Cylindrically Trapped Gases

Gianluca Bertaina, Лев П. Питаевский, S. Stringari

Published Oct 4, 2010• 29 citations

Abstract

We investigate the propagation of density and temperature waves in a cylindrically trapped gas with radial harmonic confinement. Starting from two-fluid hydrodynamic theory we derive effective 1D equations for the chemical potential and the temperature which explicitly account for the effects of viscosity and thermal conductivity. Differently from quantum fluids confined by rigid walls, the harmonic confinement allows for the propagation of both first and second sound in the long wavelength limit. We provide quantitative predictions for the two sound velocities of a superfluid Fermi gas at unitarity. For shorter wavelengths we discover a new surprising class of excitations continuously spread over a finite interval of frequencies. This results in a nondissipative damping in the response function which is analytically calculated in the limiting case of a classical ideal gas.

DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.105.150402

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