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arXiv:1712.07481 · New Journal of Physics

Time-of-flight expansion of binary Bose–Einstein condensates at finite temperature

K L Lee, N B Jørgensen, L. J. Wacker, Magnus G. Skou, K T Skalmstang, J. Arlt, Nick P. Proukakis

Published Mar 28, 2018• 34 citations

Abstract

Ultracold quantum gases provide a unique setting for studying and understanding the properties of interacting quantum systems. Here, we investigate a multi-component system of 87 Rb– 39 K Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) with tunable interactions both theoretically and experimentally. Such multi-component systems can be characterized by their miscibility, where miscible components lead to a mixed ground state and immiscible components form a phase-separated state. Here we perform the first full simulation of the dynamical expansion of this system including both BECs and thermal clouds, which allows for a detailed comparison with experimental results. In particular we show that striking features emerge in time-of-flight (TOF) for BECs with strong interspecies repulsion, even for systems which were separated in situ by a large gravitational sag. An analysis of the centre of mass positions of the BECs after expansion yields qualitative agreement with the homogeneous criterion for phase-separation, but reveals no clear transition point between the mixed and the separated phases. Instead one can identify a transition region, for which the presence of a gravitational sag is found to be advantageous. Moreover, we analyse the situation where only one component is condensed and show that the density distribution of the thermal component also shows some distinct features. Our work sheds new light on the analysis of multi-component systems after TOF and will guide future experiments on the detection of miscibility in these systems.

DOI: 10.1088/1367-2630/aaba39

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Ultracold quantum gases provide a unique setting for studying and understanding the properties of interacting quantum systems. Here, we investigate a multi-component system of 87 Rb– 39 K Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) with tunable interactions both theoretically and experimentally. Such multi-component systems can be characterized by their miscibility, where miscible components lead to a mixed ground state and immiscible components form a phase-separated state. Here we perform the first full simulation of the dynamical expansion of this system including both BECs and thermal clouds, which allows for a detailed comparison with experimental results. In particular we show that striking features emerge in time-of-flight (TOF) for BECs with strong interspecies repulsion, even for systems which were separated in situ by a large gravitational sag. An analysis of the centre of mass positions of the BECs after expansion yields qualitative agreement with the homogeneous criterion for phase-separation, but reveals no clear transition point between the mixed and the separated phases. Instead one can identify a transition region, for which the presence of a gravitational sag is found to be advantageous. Moreover, we analyse the situation where only one component is condensed and show that the density distribution of the thermal component also shows some distinct features. Our work sheds new light on the analysis of multi-component systems after TOF and will guide future experiments on the detection of miscibility in these systems.

The miscibility of two interacting quantum systems is an important testing ground for the understanding of complex quantum systems. Two-component Bose-Einstein condensates enable the investigation of this scenario in a particularly well controlled setting. In a homogeneous system, the transition between mixed and separated phases is fully characterized by a miscibility parameter based on the ratio of intra- to interspecies interaction strengths. Here we show, however, that this parameter is no longer the optimal one for trapped gases, for which the location of the phase boundary depends critically on atom numbers. We demonstrate how monitoring of damping rates and frequencies of dipole oscillations enables the experimental mapping of the phase diagram by numerical implementation of a fully self-consistent finite-temperature kinetic theory for binary condensates. The change in damping rate is explained in terms of surface oscillation in the immiscible regime, and counterflow instability in the miscible regime, with collisions becoming only important in the long time evolution.

The effects of miscibility in interacting two-component classical fluids are relevant in a broad range of daily applications. When considering quantum systems, two-component Bose–Einstein condensates provide a well-controlled platform where the miscible–immiscible phase transition can be completely characterized. In homogeneous systems, this phase transition is governed only by the competition between intra- and inter-species interactions. However, in more conventional experiments dealing with trapped gases, the pressure of the confinement increases the role of the kinetic energy and makes the system more miscible. In the most general case, the miscibility phase diagram of unbalanced mixtures of different atomic species is strongly modified by the atom number ratio and the different gravitational sags. Here, we numerically investigate the ground-state of a 23Na–39K quantum mixture for different interaction strengths and atom number ratios considering realistic experimental parameters. Defining the spatial overlap between the resulting atomic clouds, we construct the phase diagram of the miscibility transition which could be directly measured in real experiments.

We have observed and characterized the nonequilibrium spatial dynamics of a two-component 87 Rb Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) that is controllable switched back and forth between the miscible and immiscible phases of the phase separation transition by changing the internal states of the 87 Rb atoms. The subsequent evolution exhibits large scale oscillations of the spatial structure that involve component mixing and separation. We show that the larger total energy of the miscible system results in a higher oscillation frequency. This investigation introduces a new technique to control the miscibility and the spatial degrees of freedom in atomic BECs.

Experiments on Bose-Einstein condensates at finite temperature typically extract the system parameters, such as temperature, atom number, and condensed fraction from time-of-flight images taken after a free expansion time. This paper systematically examines the effect of repulsive interactions between the condensed and thermal atoms in partially condensed clouds on the expansion profile of the thermal cloud. An analytical expression for the expansion can be obtained only if the interactions between the Bose-Einstein condensate and thermal atoms are neglected, resulting in a Bose-enhanced distribution for the thermal component. Here, the deformation of the cloud due to interactions and the effects on estimated parameters are investigated by simulating the expansion using a ballistic approximation. By fitting the simulated expansion profiles with a Bose-enhanced distribution, the errors of using such a fit are estimated, and the results are explained phenomenologically. The simulation was also used as a fitting function for experimental data, showing better agreement of the extracted condensed fraction with the semi-ideal model than results from a Bose-enhanced fit.

We study the dynamics of two-component atomic Bose gases initially in a mixture encountering a sudden quench of the interspecies interactions. The dynamics above the critical temperature

{T}_{c}

is studied using a leading-order large-

N

approximation that predicted a phase transition from mixing to phase separation as a function of the interspecies coupling. Here, we explore the dynamics of this phase transition following a quench and compare our results to those found at zero temperature using the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equations which ignore quantum and thermal fluctuations. In the regime above

{T}_{c}

where no condensate is present, however, the time evolution of the densities following the quench exhibits features similar to those found at zero temperature where only the condensates contribute to the densities. When the interspecies interaction jumps above the critical value, we observe dynamical transitions from a homogeneous mixture to a phase-separated structure for both cases. Our simulations suggest that at temperatures above

{T}_{c}

where no condensate is present this dynamical transition should still be observable in experiments.

We have investigated experimentally the finite-temperature properties of a Bose-Einstein condensed cloud of

{}^{87}\mathrm{Rb}

atoms in a harmonic trap. Focusing primarily on condensed fraction and expansion energy, we measure unambiguous deviations from ideal-gas thermodynamics and obtain good agreement with a Hartree-Fock description of the mixed cloud. Our results offer clear evidence of the mutual interaction between the condensed and thermal components. To probe the low-temperature region unaccessible to the usual time-of-flight technique, we use coherent Bragg scattering as a filtering technique for the condensate. This allows us to separate spatially the condensed and normal components in time of flight and to measure reliably temperatures as low as

0.2{T}_{c}^{0}

and thermal fractions as low as 10%. Finally, we observe evidence for the limitations of the usual image analysis procedure, pointing out to the need for a more elaborate model of the expansion of the mixed cloud.