We study two sets of rate equations for sympathetic cooling of harmonically trapped Bose gases. Calculations for mixtures of Na-Rb and Li-Cs show that both sets yield similar results for the cooling times. The equilibration rates are in fair agreement with each other and differ considerably from classical rates. The onset of Bose-Einstein condensation is rather sudden and nonexponential in time, and the growth of the condensate differs for the two different mixtures we studied.
We study two sets of rate equations for sympathetic cooling of harmonically trapped Bose gases. Calculations for mixtures of Na-Rb and Li-Cs show that both sets yield similar results for the cooling times. The equilibration rates are in fair agreement with each other and differ considerably from classical rates. The onset of Bose-Einstein condensation is rather sudden and nonexponential in time, and the growth of the condensate differs for the two different mixtures we studied.
We derive two different sets of rate equations for sympathetic cooling of harmonically trapped bosons or fermions. The rate equations are obtained from a master equation derived earlier by Lewenstein et al. [Phys. Rev. A 51, 4617 (1995)] by means of decoherence and ergodicity arguments. We show analytically that the thermal equilibrium state is a stationary solution of our rate equation. We present analytical results for the rate coefficients which are needed to solve the rate equations, and we give approximate formulas that permit their computation in practice. We solve the two sets of rate equations numerically and compare the results. The cooling times obtained in both approaches agree very well. The equilibration rates show fair agreement.
In this Thesis we study steady state solutions and dynamical evolutions of two– component atomic Bose–Einstein Condensates. We initially investigate the equilibrium properties of condensate mixtures in harmonic trapping potentials at zero temperature. Subsequently we simulate the coupled growth of these condensates by inclusion of damping terms. Finally, we investigate the evolution of coupled Bose gases via the so-called classical–field method. A recent experiment [D. J. McCarron et al., Phys. Rev. A, 84, 011603(R) (2011)] achieved Bose–Einstein Condensation of a two–species 87Rb–133Cs phase segregated mixture in harmonic trapping potentials. Depending on relative atom numbers of the two species, three distinct regimes of density distributions were observed. For these experimental parameters, we investigate the corresponding time–independent ground state solutions through numerical simulations of the coupled Gross–Pitaevskii equations. By including experimentally relevant shifts between the traps, we observe a range of structures including ‘ball and shell’ formations and axially/radially separated states. These are found to be very sensitive to the trap shifts. For all three experimental regimes, our numerical simulations reveal good qualitative agreement. The observed experimental profiles cannot be guaranteed to be fully equilibrated. This, coupled with the rapid sympathetic cooling of the experimental system, leads to a situation where growth may play a determining factor in the density structures formed. To investigate this further, we introduce phenomenological damping to describe the associated condensate growth/decay, revealing a range of transient structures. However, such a model always predicts the predominance of one condensate species over longer evolution times. Work undertaken by collaborators with the more elaborate Stochastic Projected Gross–Pitaevskii equations, which can describe condensate formation by coupling to a heat bath, predicts the spontaneous formation of dark–bright solitons. Motivated by this, we show how the presence of solitons can affect the condensate distribution, thus highlighting the overall dynamical role in the emerging patterns. Finally, we use classical field methods to analyse the evolution of non trapped Bose gases from strongly nonequilibrium initial distributions. The contrast between miscible (overlapping) and immiscible (phase segregated) components gives rise to important distinctions for condensate fractions and the formation of domains and vortices. In addition, splitting the particles of a single component thermalised state into two components is investigated. We then study the effects of suddenly quenching the strength of the interspecies interactions. Under suitable conditions, this quench generates isotropic vortex tangles. While this tangle subsequently decays over time, we propose how a repeat sequence of quenches at regular intervals could be employed to drive the tangle, thereby potentially providing a novel route to the generation of quantum turbulence.
The non-equilibrium dynamics of trapped ultracold atomic gases, or mixtures thereof, is an extremely rich subject. Despite 20 years of studies, and remarkable progress mainly on the experimental front, numerous open question remain, related to the growth, relaxation and thermalisation of such systems, and there is still no universally accepted theory for their theoretical description. In this paper we discuss one of the state-of-the-art kinetic approaches, which gives an intuitive picture of the physical processes happening at the microscopic scale, being broadly applicable both below and above the critical region (but not within the critical region itself, where fluctuations become dominant and symmetry breaking takes place). Specifically, the 'Zaremba–Nikuni–Griffin' (ZNG) scheme provides a self-consistent description of the coupling between the condensate and the thermal atoms, including the collisions between these two subsystems. It has been successfully tested against experiments in various settings, including investigation of collective modes (e.g. monopole, dipole and quadrupole modes), dissipation of topological excitations (solitons and vortices) as well as surface evaporative cooling. Here, we show that the ZNG model can capture two important aspects of non-equilibrium dynamics for both single-component and two-component BECs: the Kohn mode (the undamped dipole oscillation independent of interactions and temperature) and (re)thermalisation leading to condensate growth following sudden evaporation. Our simulations, performed in a spherically symmetric trap reveal (i) an interesting two-stage dynamics and the emergence of a prominent monopole mode in the evaporative cooling of a single-component Bose gas, and (ii) the long thermalisation time associated with the sympathetic cooling of a realistic two-component mixture. Related open questions arise about the mechanisms and the nature of thermalisation in such systems, where further controlled experiments are needed for benchmarking.
We show, both experimentally and theoretically, that sympathetic cooling of 87Rb atoms in the ∣F=2,mF=2〉 state by evaporatively cooled atoms in the $|{F=1,m}_{F}=\ensuremath{-}1〉$ state can be precisely controlled so as to produce a condensate in either or both states. We also study the thermalization rate between two species. Our model renders a quantitative account of the observed role of the overlap between the two clouds and verifies that sympathetic cooling becomes inefficient when the masses are very different. Our calculation also yields an analytical expression of the thermalization rate for a single species.
We construct a nonequilibrium theory for the dynamics of two interacting finite-temperature atomic Bose-Einstein condensates and use it to numerically estimate the relative rates of the arising collisional processes near equilbrium. The condensates are described by dissipative Gross-Pitaevskii equations, coupled to quantum Boltzmann equations for the thermal atoms. The density-density interactions between atoms in different components facilitate a number of transport processes of relevance to sympathetic cooling: in particular, considering realistic miscible and immiscible trapped atomic $^{87}\mathrm{Rb}\text{\ensuremath{-}}^{41}\mathrm{K}$ and $^{87}\mathrm{Rb}\text{\ensuremath{-}}^{85}\mathrm{Rb}$ condensate mixtures, we highlight the dominance of an intercomponent scattering process associated with collisional ``exchange'' of condensed and thermal atoms between the components close to equilibrium.
Evaporative cooling of trapped atoms is studied based on the quantum kinetic theory. We extend the classical analysis of Luiten et al. [Phys. Rev. A 53, 381 (1996)] to treat Bose statistics of alkali-metal atoms. Dynamics in evaporative cooling process is described by a kinetic equation for the truncated Bose-Einstein distribution function under the assumption that the system is close to the thermal equilibrium. This approach is applicable to the ``slow'' evaporative cooling normally adopted in most experiments for the efficient production of Bose-Einstein condensates. Time-evolution calculations explain the current experiment well with sodium atoms using a slow evaporative cooling and demonstrate a rapid growth of condensate in the cooling process.