We extend classical-field methods [Blakie et al., Adv. Phys. 57, 363 (2008)] to provide a description of atom-molecule systems. We use a model of Bose-Einstein condensation of atoms close to a Feshbach resonance, in which the tunable scattering length of the atoms is described using a system of coupled atom and molecule fields [Holland et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 1915 (2001)]. We formulate the basic theoretical methods for a coupled atom-molecule system, including the determination of the phenomenological parameters in our system, the Thomas-Fermi description of Bose-Einstein condensate, the Bogoliubov--de Gennes equations, and the Bogoliubov excitation spectrum for a homogenous condensed system. We apply this formalism to the special case of Bragg scattering from a uniform condensate and find that for moderate and large scattering lengths, there is a dramatic difference in the shift of the peak of the Bragg spectra, compared to that based on a structureless atom model. The result is compatible with the experimental results of Papp et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett 101, 135301 (2008)] for Bragg scattering from a nonuniform condensate.
We extend classical-field methods [Blakie et al., Adv. Phys. 57, 363 (2008)] to provide a description of atom-molecule systems. We use a model of Bose-Einstein condensation of atoms close to a Feshbach resonance, in which the tunable scattering length of the atoms is described using a system of coupled atom and molecule fields [Holland et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 1915 (2001)]. We formulate the basic theoretical methods for a coupled atom-molecule system, including the determination of the phenomenological parameters in our system, the Thomas-Fermi description of Bose-Einstein condensate, the Bogoliubov--de Gennes equations, and the Bogoliubov excitation spectrum for a homogenous condensed system. We apply this formalism to the special case of Bragg scattering from a uniform condensate and find that for moderate and large scattering lengths, there is a dramatic difference in the shift of the peak of the Bragg spectra, compared to that based on a structureless atom model. The result is compatible with the experimental results of Papp et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett 101, 135301 (2008)] for Bragg scattering from a nonuniform condensate.
We formulate the basic theoretical methods for Bose-Einstein Condensation of atoms close to a Feshbach resonance, in which the tunable scattering length of the atoms is described using a system of coupled atom and molecule fields. These include the Thomas-Fermi description of the condensate profile, the c-field equations, and the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations, and the Bogoliubov excitation spectrum for a homogenous condensed system. We apply this formalism to the special case of Bragg scattering from a uniform condensate, and find that for moderate and large scattering lengths, there is a dramatic difference in the shift of the peak of the Bragg spectra, compared to that based on a structureless atom model. The result is compatible with the experimental results of Papp et al. [S. B. Papp et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 101(13):135301, Sep 2008].
We present a theoretical model for Bragg scattering from a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in the vicinity of a magnetic Feshbach resonance, using a two c-field formalism, one c-field for the atom and the other for a molecule formed of two atoms. We use this model to numerically simulate a recent experiment [S. B. Papp et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 101(13):135301, Sep 2008] investigating the effects of strong interactions on the Bragg spectrum from a 85Rb BEC. Results from these simulations are in very good quantitative agreement with the experimental results, confirming the importance of the resonance bound state in the dynamics of the condensate for fast experiments like Bragg scattering.
We present a theoretical model for Bragg scattering from a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in the vicinity of a magnetic Feshbach resonance, using a two-c-field formalism, one c field for the atom and the other for a molecule formed of two atoms. We use this model to numerically simulate an experiment [Papp et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 135301 (2008)] investigating the effects of strong interactions on the Bragg spectrum from a 85Rb BEC. Results from these simulations and from our previous calculations using an atom-molecule Bogoliubov approach are in very good quantitative agreement with the experimental results, confirming the importance of the resonance bound state in the dynamics of the condensate for fast experiments like Bragg scattering.
We present a theoretical analysis of excitation modes in Bose-Einstein condensates of ultracold alkali-metal gases for large scattering lengths, showing clear deviations from the Bogoliubov prediction as seen by Papp et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 135301 (2008)]. We construct the atom-atom interaction by deriving the T matrix of such systems from two coupled (open and closed) channels assuming that the Feshbach resonance dominates the latter. We calculate molecular bound-state energies as a function of the magnetic field and compare with available experiments. The s-wave phase shifts determine the local effective interaction with long-ranged repulsion and short-ranged attraction. We show that it becomes a universal function at large scattering lengths. Finally, we use this interaction to characterize the ground-state and elementary excitations of 85Rb, 87Rb, and 23Na gases. Good agreement with line shift experiments in 85Rb is achieved. We find that, at large scattering lengths, Bragg scattering experiments could directly measure the momentum dependence of the effective two-body potential.
We derive a resonance field-theory for ultra-cold Bose or Fermi gases that is valid when scattering resonances are present. Experiments with a ^85Rb condensate have shown new interesting physics close to resonance(N.R. Claussen, E.A. Donley, S.T. Thompson, C.E. Wieman, e-print cond-mat/0201400.). It is also expected that utilizing a Feshbach resonance can greatly enhance the critical temperature for superfluidity in a Fermi gas(M. Holland, S.J.J.M.F. Kokkelmans, M.L. Chiofalo, and R. Walser, Phys. Rev. Lett. 87), 120406 (2001).. Therefore it is important to treat the rich scattering physics properly inside a many-body theory. We show that the scattering length only is insufficient to describe a system close to resonance. Our many-body equations have build-in the two-body scattering equations, and we include the full scattering solution over the relevant energy range by means of a renormalized resonance scattering theory(S.J.J.M.F. Kokkelmans, J.N. Milstein, M.L. Chiofalo, R. Walser, and M.J. Holland, e-print cond-mat/0112283.).
This thesis studies bosonic and fermionic quantum gases. In the first part, a variational many-body theory is used to explain a Bragg scattering experiment carried out on a bosonic quantum gas [S.B. Papp et al. Bragg Spectroscopy of a Strongly Interacting 85Rb Bose-Einstein Condensate. Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 135301 (2008)]. A key feature in the experiment was the use of a Feshbach resonance, which made large values of the scattering length accessible. Due to the large values of the scattering length, existing models such as the Beliaev model could not be used to explain the observations, and therefore the experiment was a particularly interesting one to analyze. In our first approach, we constructed ad hoc potentials that fitted the observed excitation spectrum, and later we improved our approach by using T-matrix formalism to describe the Feshbach resonant system. All in all, the phenomenological model we developed fits the observed excitation spectrum and yields correct molecular Feshbach resonance state energies in certain cases. The second part of this thesis studies fermionic quantum gases. We focus on studying a gas of spin-1/2 particles confined to a spin-dependent optical lattice. The lattice geometry is such that the up-spin component is loaded in a honeycomb lattice, and the down-spin component is confined to the underlying triangular lattice. We considered attractive on-site and nearest-neighbor interactions, and formulated the nearest-neighbor interaction term in such a way that it takes into account the possibility of spontaneous time-reversal symmetry breaking. Furthermore, we took into account the possibility of Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) phase, which breaks spatial symmetry. Within a mean-field approximation, we showed that the FFLO state is the ground state of the system in many instances. In addition, we found out that the system spontaneously breaks time-reversal symmetry if the nearest-neighbor interaction strength is large. Due to the time-reversal symmetry breaking, the system has topologically non-trivial phases characterized by nonzero Chern numbers. Finally, there were also cases where the time-reversal symmetry was broken in the FFLO phase, and thus we found a phase where spatial and time-reversal symmetries are simultaneously broken.