Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Physics
Kinetic Theory Of Dark Solitons With Tunable Friction, Hilary M. Hurst, Dimitry K. Efimkin, I. B. Spielman, Victor Galitski
Kinetic Theory Of Dark Solitons With Tunable Friction, Hilary M. Hurst, Dimitry K. Efimkin, I. B. Spielman, Victor Galitski
Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity
We study controllable friction in a system consisting of a dark soliton in a one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensate coupled to a non-interacting Fermi gas. The fermions act as impurity atoms, not part of the original condensate, that scatter off of the soliton. We study semi-classical dynamics of the dark soliton, a particle-like object with negative mass, and calculate its friction coefficient. Surprisingly, it depends periodically on the ratio of interspecies (impurity-condensate) to intraspecies (condensate-condensate) interaction strengths. By tuning this ratio, one can access a regime where the friction coefficient vanishes. We develop a general theory of stochastic dynamics for negative mass …
Brownian Motion Of Solitons In A Bose-Einstein Condensate, Lauren M. Aycock, Hilary M. Hurst, Dimitry K. Efimkin, Dina Genkina, Hsin-I Lu, Victor M. Galitski, I. B. Spielman
Brownian Motion Of Solitons In A Bose-Einstein Condensate, Lauren M. Aycock, Hilary M. Hurst, Dimitry K. Efimkin, Dina Genkina, Hsin-I Lu, Victor M. Galitski, I. B. Spielman
Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity
We observed and controlled the Brownian motion of solitons. We launched solitonic excitations in highly elongated 87 Rb 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 …