Motion of classical impurities in Bose-Einstein condensates

G. E. Astrakharchik

I. E. Mazets, Gershon Kurizki

R. G. Lena

Jun Suzuki

A model for classical impurities moving in Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC) is proposed in the framework of quantum field theory and is solved within the Bogoliubov approximation at zero temperature. Several formulae are obtained for physical quantities such as the occupation number, the dissipation, the free energy, and the depletion. To illustrate this model two examples are studied; an impurity moving with i) a constant velocity and ii) a constant acceleration. Landau's criterion for energy dissipation accompanying the motion of impurities due to creation of quasi-particles in a superfluid, which was proposed on the basis of purely phenomenological argument, is obtained in the frame work of an exact quantum mechanical model.

Javed Akram

Lauren Aycock, Hilary M. Hurst, Dmitry K. Efimkin +4 more

We observed and controlled the Brownian motion of solitons. We launched solitonic excitations in highly elongated [Formula: see text] Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) and showed that a dilute background of impurity atoms in a different internal state dramatically affects the soliton. With no impurities and in one dimension (1D), these solitons would have an infinite lifetime, a consequence of integrability. In our experiment, the added impurities scatter off the much larger soliton, contributing to its Brownian motion and decreasing its lifetime. We describe the soliton's diffusive behavior using a quasi-1D scattering theory of impurity atoms interacting with a soliton, giving diffusion coefficients consistent with experiment.