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Physical Review Letters

Vortex-induced phase slip dissipation in a torioidal Bose-Einstein condensate flowing through a barrier

Lee A. Collins

Published Jan 1, 2009• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

We study the phase slips superfluid dissipation mechanism with a BEC flowing through a repulsive barrier inside a torus. The barrier is adiabatically raised across the annulus while the condensate is flowing with a finite quantized angular momentum. We found that, at a critical height, a vortex reaches the barrier moving radially from the inner region to eventually circulate along the annulus. At a slightly higher barrier, an anti-vortex also enters into the annulus from the outward region. The vortex and anti-vortex decrease the total angular momentum by leaving behind their respective paths a 2{pi} phase slip. When they collide or orbit along the same loop, the condensate suffers a global 2{pi} phase slip and the total angular momentum decreases by one quantum. The analysis is based on numerical simulations of the dynamical Gross-Pitaevskii equation both in two- and three-dimensions, the latter with the experimental parameters of the torus trap recently created at the NIST institute.

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We study the phase slips superfluid dissipation mechanism with a BEC flowing through a repulsive barrier inside a torus. The barrier is adiabatically raised across the annulus while the condensate is flowing with a finite quantized angular momentum. We found that, at a critical height, a vortex reaches the barrier moving radially from the inner region to eventually circulate along the annulus. At a slightly higher barrier, an anti-vortex also enters into the annulus from the outward region. The vortex and anti-vortex decrease the total angular momentum by leaving behind their respective paths a 2{pi} phase slip. When they collide or orbit along the same loop, the condensate suffers a global 2{pi} phase slip and the total angular momentum decreases by one quantum. The analysis is based on numerical simulations of the dynamical Gross-Pitaevskii equation both in two- and three-dimensions, the latter with the experimental parameters of the torus trap recently created at the NIST institute.
We study superfluid dissipation due to phase slips for a Bose-Einstein condensate flowing through a repulsive barrier inside a torus. The barrier is adiabatically raised across the annulus, while the condensate flows with a finite quantized angular momentum. At a critical height, a vortex moves from the inner region and reaches the barrier to eventually circulate around the annulus. At a higher critical height, an antivortex also enters into the torus from the outer region. Both vortex and antivortex decrease the total angular momentum by leaving behind a $2\ensuremath{\pi}$ phase slip. When they collide and annihilate or orbit along the same loop, the condensate suffers a global $2\ensuremath{\pi}$ phase slip, and the total angular momentum decreases by one quantum. In hydrodynamic regime, the instability sets in when the local superfluid velocity equals the sound speed inside the barrier region.
Motivated by a recent experiment [K. C. Wright et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 025302 (2013)], we investigate deterministic discontinuous jumps between quantized circulation states in a toroidally trapped Bose-Einstein condensate. These phase slips are induced by vortex excitations created by a rotating weak link. We analyze the influence of a localized condensate density depletion and atomic superflows, governed by the rotating barrier, on the energetic and dynamical stability of the vortices in the ring-shaped condensate. We simulate in a three-dimensional dissipative mean-field model the dynamics of the condensate using parameters similar to the experimental conditions. Moreover, we consider the dynamics of the stirred condensate far beyond the experimentally explored region and reveal surprising manifestations of complex vortex dynamics.
We consider the setup employed in a recent experiment (Ramanathan et al 2011 Phys. Rev. Lett. 106 130401) devoted to the study of the instability of the superfluid flow of a toroidal Bose–Einstein condensate in the presence of a repulsive optical barrier. Using the Gross–Pitaevskii mean-field equation, we observe, consistently with what we found in Piazza et al (2009 Phys. Rev. A 80 021601), that the superflow with one unit of angular momentum becomes unstable at a critical strength of the barrier and decays through the mechanism of phase slippage performed by pairs of vortex–antivortex lines annihilating. While this picture qualitatively agrees with the experimental findings, the measured critical barrier height is not very well reproduced by the Gross–Pitaevskii equation, indicating that thermal fluctuations can play an important role (Mathey et al 2012 arXiv:1207.0501). As an alternative explanation of the discrepancy, we consider the effect of the finite resolution of the imaging system. At the critical point, the superfluid velocity in the vicinity of the obstacle is always of the order of the sound speed in that region, v barr = c l . In particular, in the hydrodynamic regime (not reached in the above experiment), the critical point is determined by applying the Landau criterion inside the barrier region. On the other hand, the Feynman critical velocity v f is much lower than the observed critical velocity. We argue that this is a general feature of the Gross–Pitaevskii equation, where we have v f = c l with being a small parameter of the model. Given these observations, the question still remains open about the nature of the superfluid instability.
We study the relation between Josephson dynamics and topological excitations in a dilute Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a double-well trap. We show that the phase slips responsible for the self-trapping regime are created by vortex rings entering and annihilating inside the weak-link region or created at the center of the barrier and expanding outside the system. Large amplitude oscillations just before the onset of self-trapping are also strictly connected with the dynamics of vortex rings at the edges of the inter-well barrier. Our results extend and analyze the dynamics of the vortex-induced phase slippages suggested a few decades ago in relation to the "ac" Josephson effect of superconducting and superfluid helium systems.
Using a numerical implementation of the truncated Wigner approximation, we simulate the experiment reported by Ramanathan et al. in Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 130401 (2011), in which a Bose-Einstein condensate is created in a toroidal trap and set into rotation via a phase imprinting technique. A potential barrier is then placed in the trap to study the decay of the superflow. We find that the current decays via thermally activated phase slips, which can also be visualized as vortices crossing the barrier region in the radial direction. Adopting the notion of critical velocity used in the experiment, we determine it to be lower than the local speed of sound at the barrier, in contradiction to the predictions of the zero-temperature Gross-Pitaevskii equation. We map out the superfluid decay rate and critical velocity as a function of temperature and observe a strong dependence. Thermal fluctuations offer a partial explanation of the experimentally observed reduction of the critical velocity from the phonon velocity.
Motivated by a recent experiment [K. C. Wright et al., Phys. Rev. A 88, 063633 (2013)], we investigate the microscopic mechanism for excitation of vortices and formation of a persistent current in an annular BEC stirred by a narrow blue-detuned optical beam. In the framework of a two-dimensional mean-field model, we study the dissipative dynamics of the condensate with parameters that reflect realistic experimental conditions. Vortex-antivortex pairs appear near the center of the stirrer in the bulk of the condensate for slow motion of the stirring beam. When the barrier angular velocity is above some critical value, an outer edge surface mode develops and breaks into the vortices entering the condensate annulus. We determine the conditions for creation of vortex excitations in the stirred toroidal condensate and compare our results with experimental observations.