We provide an overview of the recent theoretical and experimental advances in the study of second sound in ultracold atomic gases. Starting from the Landau two fluid hydrodynamic equations we develop the theory of first and second sound in various configurations characterized by different geometries and quantum statistics. These include the weakly interacting 3D Bose gas, the strongly interacting Fermi gas at unitarity in the presence of highly elongated traps and the dilute 2D Bose gas, characterized by the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition. An explicit comparison with the propagation of second sound in liquid Helium is carried out to elucidate the main analogies and differences. We also make an explicit comparison with the available experimental data and point out the crucial role played by the superfluid density in determining the temperature dependence of the second sound speed.
We provide an overview of the recent theoretical and experimental advances in the study of second sound in ultracold atomic gases. Starting from the Landau two fluid hydrodynamic equations we develop the theory of first and second sound in various configurations characterized by different geometries and quantum statistics. These include the weakly interacting 3D Bose gas, the strongly interacting Fermi gas at unitarity in the presence of highly elongated traps and the dilute 2D Bose gas, characterized by the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition. An explicit comparison with the propagation of second sound in liquid Helium is carried out to elucidate the main analogies and differences. We also make an explicit comparison with the available experimental data and point out the crucial role played by the superfluid density in determining the temperature dependence of the second sound speed.
Recently there has been renewed interest in second sound in superfluid Bose and Fermi gases. By using two-fluid hydrodynamic theory, we review the density response $\chi_{nn}(\bq,\omega)$ of these systems as a tool to identify second sound in experiments based on density probes. Our work generalizes the well-known studies of the dynamic structure factor $S(\bq,\omega)$ in superfluid 4He in the critical region. We show that, in the unitary limit of uniform superfluid Fermi gases, the relative weight of second vs. first sound in the compressibility sum rule is given by the Landau--Placzek ratio $\lp\equiv (\bar{c}_p-\bar{c}_v)/\bar{c}_v$ for all temperatures below Tc. In contrast to superfluid 4He, $\lp$ is much larger in strongly interacting Fermi gases, being already of order unity for T∼0.8Tc, thereby providing promising opportunities to excite second sound with density probes. The relative weights of first and second sound are quite different in $S(\bq,\omega)$ (measured in pulse propagation studies) as compared to $\mathrm{Im}\chi_{nn}(\bq,\omega)$ (measured in two-photon Bragg scattering). We show that first and second sound in $S(\bq,\omega)$ in a strongly interacting Bose-condensed gas are similar to those in a Fermi gas at unitarity. However, in a weakly interacting Bose gas, first and second sound are mainly uncoupled oscillations of the thermal cloud and condensate, respectively, and second sound has most of the spectral weight in $S(\bq,\omega)$. We also discuss the behaviour of the superfluid and normal fluid velocity fields involved in first and second sound.
We theoretically investigate sound modes in a weakly-interacting collisional Bose gas in D dimensions. Using the Landau's two-fluid hydrodynamics and working within the Bogoliubov theory, we observe the hybridization of the first and second sound modes for D≥2. To model the recent measurements of the sound velocities in 2D, obtained around the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition temperature and outside the very weakly-interacting regime, we derive a refined calculation of the superfluid density, finding a fair agreement with the experiment. In the 1D case, for which experimental results are currently unavailable, we find no hybridization, triggering the necessity of future experimental investigations. Our analysis provides a systematic understanding of sound propagation in a collisional weakly-interacting Bose gas in D dimensions.
Abstract We theoretically investigate sound modes in a weakly-interacting collisional Bose gas in D dimensions. Using the Landau’s two-fluid hydrodynamics and working within the Bogoliubov theory, we observe the hybridization of the first and second sound modes for D ⩾ 2. To model the recent measurements of the sound velocities in 2D, obtained in the weakly-interacting regime and around the Berezinskii–Kosterlitz–Thouless transition temperature, we derive a refined calculation of the superfluid density, finding a fair agreement with the experiment. In the 1D case, for which experimental results are currently unavailable, we find no hybridization, triggering the necessity of future investigations. Our analysis provides a systematic understanding of sound propagation in a collisional weakly-interacting Bose gas in D dimensions.
Recently, there has been renewed interest in second sound in superfluid Bose and Fermi gases. By using two-fluid hydrodynamic theory, we review the density response χ nn ( q , ω) of these systems as a tool to identify second sound in experiments based on density probes. Our work generalizes the well-known studies of the dynamic structure factor S ( q , ω) in superfluid 4 He in the critical region. We show that, in the unitary limit of uniform superfluid Fermi gases, the relative weight of second versus first sound in the compressibility sum rule is given by the Landau–Placzek ratio for all temperatures below T c . In contrast to superfluid 4 He, LP is much larger in strongly interacting Fermi gases, being already of order unity for T ∼0.8 T c , thereby providing promising opportunities to excite second sound with density probes. The relative weights of first and second sound are quite different in S ( q , ω) (measured in pulse propagation studies) as compared with Imχ nn ( q , ω) (measured in two-photon Bragg scattering). We show that first and second sound in S ( q , ω) in a strongly interacting Bose-condensed gas are similar to those in a Fermi gas at unitarity. However, in a weakly interacting Bose gas, first and second sound are mainly uncoupled oscillations of the thermal cloud and condensate, respectively, and second sound has most of the spectral weight in S ( q , ω). We also discuss the behaviour of the superfluid and normal fluid velocity fields involved in first and second sound.
Water flowing down a pipe experiences viscous drag that causes it to lose energy and slow down. A superfluid, such as liquid helium (3He and 4He) or electrons in a superconductor, can flow without friction when in contact with a wall. This fascinating phenomenon, or superfluidity, was discovered by Kapitza [1], Allen and Misener [2] in 1937. The formation of a superfluid is related to the formation of a Bose--Einstein condensate (BEC). 4He is a boson as its total spin is zero, an integer. Condensation in fermionic 3He liquid occurs through composite bosons of paired atoms in a process similar to electron pairing in a superconductor. To explain the peculiar properties of superfluid helium, Landau considered a superfluid to be comprised of two parts: a ‘pure’ superfluid component with zero entropy and viscosity, and a normal component that behaves like ordinary fluid. An interesting manifestation of this two-fluid model is the existence of two types of oscillations, the ‘first and second sounds’ as named by Landau. The ‘first sound’ is a wave that propagates at constant entropy per particle, just like sounds in ordinary fluids. It propagates with pressure and density oscillations. ‘Second sound’, unlike what its name suggests, is not audible as it propagates at nearly constant pressure (isobaric oscillation). Here, entropy density takes the role of pressure/density in normal sound waves. Historically, the observation of the second sound in superfluid helium, and the measurement of its speed, played a crucial role in understanding the nature of superfluid helium. The speed of the second sound can be used to determine the superfluid fraction, i.e. the ratio of the superfluid density to the total fluid density [3,4]. In the past decades, the field of ultracold atomic gases has developed into a fertile ground for studying superfluid physics, as the inter-particle interactions between two atoms can be tuned using the so-called Fano–Feshbach resonances. Systematic studies on Fermi gases can be preformed in the limit of strong interactions, whose properties are difficult to predict but important to the understanding of strongly correlated quantum systems of many particles, such as high-temperature superconductors, quark–gluon plasmas and neutron stars. Quantitative determination of the superfluid fraction in strongly interacting Fermi gases has been an elusive goal of scientists for many years, as the methods that allow the determination of the superfluid fraction in liquid helium cannot be directly applied to ultracold gases. For example, to excite the second sound in liquid helium, a local heat pulse can be created by passing a current through a heating wire submersed in the liquid. The heat pulse can then be detected at the other end of the liquid using a temperature sensitive sensor as illustrated in Fig. 1(a). Such methods cannot be implemented with ultracold atomic gas ensembles that typically contain only about hundreds of thousand atoms at μK (1 millionth of a kelvin) temperatures. Further adding to the difficulties, the propagation of the second sound in liquid helium usually involves no density variation/oscillation. This means that the second sound could not be detected easily with the absorption imaging technique typically used for probing cold atoms, assuming that the strongly interacting Fermi gases behave very much like strongly interacting bosonic liquid helium (4He). (a) Excitation and detection of the second sound in superfluid helium; (b) local heating through the power modulation of an excitation laser beam; (c) the detection of the second sound in a strongly interacting Fermi gas with direct absorption imaging. Recently, the group of Professor Rudolf Grimm from the University of Innsbruck (Austria), in collaboration with a theoretical team from the Trento University (Italy) led by Professors Sandro Stringari and Lev Pitaevskii, successfully measured the speed of second sound in a resonantly interacting Fermi gas using a simple and elegant method. Their results were published in [5]. To observe the second sound, the authors created a local heat pulse at the center of an elongated trapped gas by creating a short burst of modulation to the power of a light beam intercepting this gas (see Fig. 1b). They then measured the speed of the second sound by observing the movement of a thermal-induced density dip along the elongated gas (Fig. 1c). Taking advantage of the inhomogeneous density distributions of the superfluid atoms in the trap, they ingeniously determined the temperature dependence of the superfluid fraction without needing to vary the temperature of the samples. The observation of the second sound in the strongly interacting Fermi gases opens up a new horizon for studying the superfluid properties with tunable interactions. Knowing the speed of second sound can provide a lot of valuable information, allowing physicists working on many-body theories to falsify their models and theories. It demonstrates the importance of using experimentally measured quantities, such as the equation of state employed here, to calibrate and to supplement theoretical investigations. Significant new advances will follow in the understanding of superfluidity of many strongly interacting particles, where faithful theoretical modeling and calculations are impossible at the microscopic level.
The two-fluid model is fundamental for the description of superfluidity. In the nearly incompressible liquid regime, it successfully describes first and second sound, corresponding, respectively, to density and entropy waves, in both liquid helium and unitary Fermi gases. Here, we study the two sounds in the opposite regime of a highly compressible fluid, using an ultracold ^{39}K Bose gas in a three-dimensional box trap. We excite the longest-wavelength mode of our homogeneous gas, and observe two distinct resonant oscillations below the critical temperature, of which only one persists above it. In a microscopic mode-structure analysis, we find agreement with the hydrodynamic theory, where first and second sound involve density oscillations dominated by, respectively, thermal and condensed atoms. Varying the interaction strength, we explore the crossover from hydrodynamic to collisionless behavior in a normal gas.