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arXiv:2204.07925 · Symmetry

Josephson-like Oscillations in Toroidal Spinor Bose–Einstein Condensates: A Prospective Symmetry Probe

Mário Henrique Figlioli Donato, Sérgio Ricardo Muniz

Published Apr 23, 2022• 2 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Josephson junctions are essential ingredients in the superconducting circuits used in many existing quantum technologies. Additionally, ultracold atomic quantum gases have also become essential platforms to study superfluidity. Here, we explore the analogy between superconductivity and superfluidity to present an intriguing effect caused by a thin finite barrier in a quasi-one-dimensional toroidal spinor Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC). In this system, the atomic current density flowing through the edges of the barrier oscillates, such as the electrical current through a Josephson junction in a superconductor, but in our case, there is no current circulation through the barrier. We also show how the nontrivial broken-symmetry states of spinor BECs change the structure of this Josephson-like current, creating the possibility to probe the spinor symmetry, solely using measurements of this superfluid current.

DOI
10.3390/sym14050867

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Josephson junctions are essential ingredients in the superconducting circuits used in many existing quantum technologies. Additionally, ultracold atomic quantum gases have also become essential platforms to study superfluidity. Here, we explore the analogy between superconductivity and superfluidity to present an intriguing effect caused by a thin finite barrier in a quasi-one-dimensional toroidal spinor Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC). In this system, the atomic current density flowing through the edges of the barrier oscillates, such as the electrical current through a Josephson junction in a superconductor, but in our case, there is no current circulation through the barrier. We also show how the nontrivial broken-symmetry states of spinor BECs change the structure of this Josephson-like current, creating the possibility to probe the spinor symmetry, solely using measurements of this superfluid current.
We report the creation of a pair of Josephson junctions on a toroidal dilute gas Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), a configuration that is the cold atom analog of the well-known dc superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID).We observe Josephson effects, measure the critical current of the junctions, and find dynamic behavior that is in good agreement with the simple Josephson equations for a tunnel junction with the ideal sinusoidal current-phase relation expected for the parameters of the experiment.The junctions and toroidal trap are created with the painted potential, a time-averaged optical dipole potential technique which will allow scaling to more complex BEC circuit geometries than the single atom-SQUID case reported here.Since rotation plays the same role in the atom SQUID as magnetic field does in the dc SQUID magnetometer, the device has potential as a compact rotation sensor.
Superfluidity is a remarkable phenomenon. Superfluidity was initially characterized by flow without friction, first seen in liquid helium in 1938, and has been studied extensively since. Superfluidity is believed to be related to, but not identical to Bose-Einstein condensation, a statistical mechanical phenomena predicted by Albert Einstein in 1924 based on the statistics of Satyendra Nath Bose, where bosonic atoms make a phase transition to form a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), a gas which has macroscopic occupation of a single quantum state. Developments in laser cooling of neutral atoms and the subsequent realization of Bose-Einstein condensates in ultracold gases have opened a new window into the study of superfluidity and its relation to Bose-Einstein condensation. In our atomic sodium BEC experiment, we studied superfluidity and dissipationless flow in an all-optical toroidal trap, constructed using the combination of a horizontal ``sheet''-like beam and vertical ``ring''-like beam, which, like a circuit loop, allows flow around the ring. On inducing a single quantum of circulation in the condensate, the smoothness and uniformity of the toroidal BEC enabled the sustaining of a persistent current lasting 40 seconds, limited by the lifetime of the BEC due to background gas pressure. This success set the stage for further experiments studying superfluidity. In a first set of experiments, we studied the stability of the persistent current by inserting a barrier in the flow path of the ring. The superflow stopped abruptly at a barrier strength such that the local flow velocity at the barrier exceeded a critical velocity, which supported decay via the creation of a vortex-antivortex pair. Our precise control in inducing and arresting superflow in the BEC is a first step toward studying other aspects of superfluidity, such as the effect of temperature and dimensionality. This thesis discusses these experiments and also details partial-transfer absorption imaging, an imaging technique developed in the course of this work.
We report the creation of a pair of Josephson junctions on a toroidal dilute gas Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), a configuration that is the cold atom analog of the well-known dc superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID). We observe Josephson effects, measure the critical current of the junctions, and find dynamic behavior that is in good agreement with the simple Josephson equations for a tunnel junction with the ideal sinusoidal current-phase relation expected for the parameters of the experiment. The junctions and toroidal trap are created with the painted potential, a time-averaged optical dipole potential technique which will allow scaling to more complex BEC circuit geometries than the single atom-SQUID case reported here. Since rotation plays the same role in the atom SQUID as magnetic field does in the dc SQUID magnetometer, the device has potential as a compact rotation sensor.
Superfluid properties of Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) in toroidal quasi-one-dimensional traps are investigated in the presence of periodic scattering length modulations along the ring. The existence of several types of stable periodic waves, ranging from almost uniform to very fragmented chains of weakly interacting and equally spaced solitons, is demonstrated. We show that these waves may support persistent atomic currents and sound waves with spectra of Bogoliubov type. Fragmented condensates can be viewed as arrays of Josephson junctions and the current as a BEC manifestation of the dc-Josephson effect. The influence of linear defects on BEC superfluidity has been also investigated. We found that for subcritical velocities, linear defects that are static with respect to the lattice (while the condensate moves in respect to both the optical lattice and the defect) preserve the BEC superfluidity.
The Josephson effect is a macroscopic quantum phenomenon that reveals the broken symmetry associated with any superfluid state. Here we report on the observation of the Josephson effect between two fermionic superfluids coupled through a thin tunneling barrier. We show that the relative population and phase are canonically conjugate dynamical variables throughout the crossover from the molecular Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) to the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superfluid regime. For larger initial excitations from equilibrium, the dynamics of the superfluids become dissipative, which we ascribe to the propagation of vortices through the superfluid bulk. Our results highlight the robust nature of resonant superfluids.
Bose-Einstein condensates of weakly interacting dilute atomic gases provide a unique system with which to study phenomena associated with superfluidity. The simplicity of these systems allows us to study the fundamental physics of superfluidity without having to consider the strong interactions present in other superfluid systems such as superconductors and liquid helium. While condensate-based studies have been around for 20 years, our novel approach to confining ultracold atoms has opened a completely new range of parameter space to investigate. Armed with an ability for straightforward creation of arbitrary, time-dependent potential landscapes in which to study superfluid interactions, we were able to take a closer look at predictions of superfluid behavior that are decades old, but until now have never been tested directly. The purpose of this research was to draw direct analogies between superfluid BEC systems, which we term superfluid atom circuits, and existing superconducting circuits, thus allowing us to take advantage of much of the existing knowledge that has come from this well-studied field. Specifically, existing circuits and devices that have been created with superconductors give us insight into what might be possible someday with atom-circuit devices and inspiration to create them. In these experiments, we employed two different atom circuits; one classical (thermal ideal gas) and one quantum (ultracold superfluid). Our results show that each system is equivalent to an electronic circuit consisting of a capacitor being discharged through an inductor in series with some dissipative element. In the thermal system, dissipation can be described in terms of simple resistive flow with the resistance equivalent to ballistic, Sharvin resistance seen in electronic circuits. The superfluid measurements show that the dissipation is best described as a resistance-shunted Josephson junction, which is an analogue to similar devices in superconducting circuits. Additionally, the specific geometry of the atom circuit we used in our superfluid system allowed us to investigate directly a predicted mechanism responsible for the dissipation in superfluids caused by the generation of collective excitations, namely vortices. Direct observation of this mechanism has not previously been possible in superfluid helium and superconducting systems.