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arXiv:cond-mat/0205478 · Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics

Stirring a Bose Einstein condensate

Bogdan Damski, Krzysztof Sacha, Jakub Zakrzewski

Published Sep 17, 2002• 10 citations
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Abstract

By shining a tightly focused laser light on a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) and moving the centre of the beam along a spiral path one may stir the BEC and create vortices. It is shown that one can induce rotation of the BEC in the direction opposite to the direction of stirring.
DOI
10.1088/0953-4075/35/19/308

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Using a focused laser beam we stir a 87Rb Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a magnetic trap. We observe that the steady states of the condensate correspond to an elliptic cloud, stationary in the rotating frame. These steady states depend nonlinearly on the stirring parameters (amplitude and frequency), and various solutions can be reached experimentally depending on the path followed in this parameter space. These states can be dynamically unstable and we observe that such instabilities lead to vortex nucleation in the condensate.
We investigate the superfluid behavior of a Bose-Einstein condensate of 6Li^{6}\mathrm{Li}6Li molecules. In the experiment by Weimer et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 095301 (2015)] a condensate is stirred by a weak, red-detuned laser beam along a circular path around the trap center. The rate of induced heating increases steeply above a velocity vc{v}_{c}vc​, which we define as the critical velocity. Below this velocity, the moving beam creates almost no heating. In this paper, we demonstrate a quantitative understanding of the critical velocity. Using both numerical and analytical methods, we identify the nonzero temperature, the circular motion of the stirrer, and the density profile of the cloud as key factors influencing the magnitude of vc{v}_{c}vc​. A direct comparison to the experimental data shows excellent agreement.