Homogeneous quantum gases open up new possibilities for studying many-body phenomena and have now been realized for a variety of systems. For gases with short-range interactions the way to make the cloud homogeneous is, predictably, to trap it in an ideal (homogeneous) box potential. We show that creating a close to homogeneous dipolar gas in the roton regime, when long-range interactions are important, actually requires trapping particles in soft-walled (inhomogeneous) box-like potentials. In particular, we numerically explore a dipolar gas confined in a pancake trap which is harmonic along the polarization axis and a cylindrically symmetric power-law potential ${r}^{p}$ radially. We find that intermediate $p$'s maximize the proportion of the sample that can be brought close to the critical density required to reach the roton regime, whereas higher $p$'s trigger density oscillations near the wall even when the bulk of the system is not in the roton regime. We characterize how the optimum density distribution depends on the shape of the trapping potential and find it is controlled by the trap wall steepness.
Homogeneous quantum gases open up new possibilities for studying many-body phenomena and have now been realized for a variety of systems. For gases with short-range interactions the way to make the cloud homogeneous is, predictably, to trap it in an ideal (homogeneous) box potential. We show that creating a close to homogeneous dipolar gas in the roton regime, when long-range interactions are important, actually requires trapping particles in soft-walled (inhomogeneous) box-like potentials. In particular, we numerically explore a dipolar gas confined in a pancake trap which is harmonic along the polarization axis and a cylindrically symmetric power-law potential rp radially. We find that intermediate p's maximize the proportion of the sample that can be brought close to the critical density required to reach the roton regime, whereas higher p's trigger density oscillations near the wall even when the bulk of the system is not in the roton regime. We characterize how the optimum density distribution depends on the shape of the trapping potential and find it is controlled by the trap wall steepness.
By means of mean-field theory, we have studied the structure and excitation spectrum of a purely dipolar Bose gas in a pancake shaped trap where the confinement in the x-y plane is provided by a highly anharmonic potential, resulting in an almost uniform confinement in the plane. We show that the stable condensates are characterized by marked radially structured density profiles. The stability diagram is calculated by independently varying the strength of the interaction and the trap geometry. By computing the Bogoliubov excitation spectrum near the instability line we show that soft ``angular'' rotons are responsible for the collapse of the system. The free expansion of the cloud after the trap is released is also studied by means of time-dependent calculations, showing that a prolate cigar-shaped condensate is dynamically stabilized during the expansion, which would otherwise collapse. Dipolar condensates rotating with sufficiently high angular velocity show the formation of multiply quantized giant vortices, while the condensates acquire a ring-shaped form.
Today, sixteen years after the realization of the first Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), the field of ultracold many-body physics is booming. In particular, much excitement has been generated by the prospect of creating a degenerate quantum gas of dipolar atoms or molecules. Already, some experimental groups have succeeded in Bose-condensing atomic 52Cr and 164Dy, while other groups have made significant progress towards achieving degeneracy of heteronuclear molecules, such as fermionic 40K87Rb and bosonic 87Rb133Cs, where the strength of the dipolar interaction promises to be much greater than that of the already rich 52Cr condensate. Just as the creation of BEC launched a whole new field of research, dipolar BECs are likely to do the same. However, such systems present a theoretical challenge due to the long-range, anisotropic nature of the dipolar interaction. In this thesis, I present a theoretical investigation of ultracold Bose gases with dipolar interactions.\nThe first part of this thesis is dedicated to the field theoretical treatment of a quantum Bose fluid with dipolar interactions in the ultracold, dilute regime, where the system is well-described by a classical condensate field with quasiparticle excitations. The set of nonlinear integrodifferential equations that describe these objects are derived and novel methods for solving them are presented that, in general, require intricate numerical treatment. Of particular importance is the emergence of a roton mode, reminiscent of that in superfluid 4He. In the second part of this thesis, I show how the roton plays a critical role in the ground state structure and dynamics of a dipolar BEC. Full numerical simulations show that the roton can, for example, be seen in the radial density profile of a quantized vortex state or in the angular collapse and explosion of a dipolar BEC. Additionally, I show the crucial role that this roton plays in determining the transition to superfluidity in these systems. Thus, a set of novel phenomena in ultracold dipolar Bose gases is explained by the presence of the roton, and experimental signatures of these phenomena are made clear.
Roton excitations constitute a key feature of dipolar gases, connecting these gases with superfluid helium. We show that the density dependence of the roton minimum results in a spatial roton confinement, particularly relevant in pancake dipolar condensates with large aspect ratios. We show that roton confinement plays a crucial role in the dynamics after roton instability, and that arresting the instability may create a trapped roton gas revealed by confined density modulations. We discuss the local susceptibility against density perturbations, which we illustrate for the case of vortices. Roton confinement is expected to play a key role in experiments.
We theoretically investigate various beyond mean-field effects on Bose gases at zero temperature featuring the anisotropic and long-range dipole-dipole interaction in addition to the isotropic and short-range contact interaction. Within the realm of the Bogoliubov--de Gennes theory, we consider static properties and low-lying excitations of both homogeneous and harmonically trapped dipolar bosonic gases. For the homogeneous system, the condensate depletion, the ground-state energy, the equation of state, and the speed of sound are discussed in detail. Making use of the local density approximation, we extend these results in order to study the properties of a dipolar Bose gas in a harmonic trap and in the regime of large particle numbers. After deriving the equations of motion for the general case of a triaxial trap, we analyze the influence of quantum fluctuations on important properties of the gas, such as the equilibrium configuration and the low-lying excitations in the case of a cylinder-symmetric trap. In addition to the monopole and quadrupole oscillation modes, we also discuss the radial quadrupole mode. We find that the latter acquires a quantum correction exclusively due to the dipole-dipole interaction. As a result, we identify the radial quadrupole as a reasonably accessible source for the signature of dipolar many-body effects and stress the enhancing character that dipolar interactions have for quantum fluctuations in the other oscillation modes.
The work of this thesis concerns the properties of a Bose gas of polarised dipoles that have long-range and anisotropic interactions. Our work is divided into two parts. First, the stability of a dipolar Bose gas at finite temperature (both above and below the critical Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) temperature Tc). Second, the fluctuations of a dipolar BEC at zero and small finite temperature (T ≪ Tc) in a regime where rotonic excitations emerge. \n \nPart I: Stability of a Trapped Finite Temperature Dipolar Bose Gas: Above Tc we implement a semiclassical Hartree-Fock theory and characterise the dependence of the stability boundary on temperature, trap geometry and the strength of the dipole-dipole interaction and contact interaction. We find that stability is greatly enhanced above Tc and that trap geometry continues to play a key role. Furthermore, we find that for oblate traps a novel double instability feature emerges. \nTo extend our stability analysis to the low temperature regime, T < Tc, we develop a beyond semiclassical Hartree theory. We use this to characterise the stability boundary as a function of geometry. Interestingly, we find large beyond semiclassical effects above Tc for prolate trapping geometries. We characterise thermal effects on biconcave condensate states. \n \nPart II: Rotons and Fluctuations in a Trapped Dipolar Condensate: To study density fluctuations we implement a numerical scheme to solve the Gross-Pitaevskii equation and the Bogoliubov de Gennes equations. We find that the phonon and roton gases spatially separate and we characterise the role of the anomalous density on the density fluctuations of the thermally activated rotons. We develop a numerical scheme that calculates number fluctuations within cells of various shapes and sizes, and find a strong peak in the fluctuations when the cell size is around half the roton wavelength, which should be detectable by current experiments. By tailoring the cell shape we predict that experiments should be able to detect the effects of individual roton modes. \nFor the study of zero temperature fluctuations we deploy the Gross-Pitaevskii and Bogoliubov de Gennes equations to calculate the dynamic and static structure factors for a highly oblate BEC. We find a clear signature of the roton gas dispersion relation within the structure factors. This signature should be detectible in current experiments using Bragg spectroscopy.
In this thesis we study the effects of the dipole-dipole interaction on the physics of ultracold quantum gases, both bosonic and fermionic, within the theoretical framework provided by the mean-field regime. This kind of interaction takes place in ultracold atomic gases (for instance 52Cr or 164Dy) due to their atomic magnetic dipole moment, and in ultracold molecular gases due to the magnetic or electric dipole moment. \n \nIn the case of quantum gases of bosonic atoms, or Bose-Einstein condensates, the dipole-dipole interaction can be studied within mean-field approximation using the Gross-Pitaevskii equation, which now contains a new non-linear term due to the dipole-dipole interaction. We investigate, on the one hand dipolar condensates confined in harmonic traps, and on the other dipolar condensates confined in toroidal traps. In the harmonic geometry, our focus is on the study of the ground state and the quantized vortex state, where the density profile is characterized as well as some properties leading to the process of vortex formation, such as the critical frequency and the energy barrier that has to be overcome to bring the vortex from the surface to the centre of the gas. We finish the study of dipolar condensates in harmonic traps by dynamically simulating the precession frequency of an off-center vortex in a non-rotating condensate. \n \nIn the toroidal geometry the dipolar effects are strongly magnified when the polarization axis of the dipoles is perpendicular to the trap symmetry axis. In this case, the anisotropic structure of the density can be understood as the response of the system to the double-well effective potential along the ring. We have studied the dynamics of this system when the initial number of atoms in the left and right wells is imbalanced, predicting Josephson and self-trapping oscillations depending on the initial condition. This has led us to name this new system as Self-induced Josephson Junction. We have studied in detail the self-trapping regime and we have seen that the particle flux inversion is closely related to the crossing of vortices across the Josephson junctions. This result opens the door to establishing a more direct connection between the phase-slip regime, widely addressed in superfluid helium, and the self-trapping regime of condensates. \n \nIn the case of quantum gases of fermionic dipolar particles, we have studied how the radial quadrupole mode allows one to distinguish between hydrodynamic and collisionless regimes. We have analytically calculated the frequency of this mode in the mean-field approximation, generalizing the results from the Thomas-Fermi approximation for trapped ideal Fermi gases. On the one hand, we observe that the frequency in the hydrodynamic regime is smaller than in non-dipolar Fermi gases, while in the collisionless regime the frequency is larger or smaller than that corresponding to the non-interacting system depending on the geometry of the harmonic trap. On the other hand, we predict that reducing the trap deformation (aspect ratio) an observable jump in the frequency of the radial quadrupole mode would take place, which would correspond to the transition between the collisionless and hydrodynamic regimes, for instance when the gas undergoes the transition to the superfluid state.