Excitations in hydrodynamic ultra-cold Bose gases

Abstract

The field of ultra-cold atomic physics allows probing of two-component quantum liquids with a hydrodynamic normal fluid accompanied by superfluid Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC’s), where the experimental results can be compared to theoretical predictions of the behavior of a weakly interacting two fluid system. Hydrodynamicity in quantum systems like BEC's can have influence on multiple aspects of the collective behavior of the system, such as on the oscillation frequency of quadrupole modes, multiple sound modes in the condensate, but also on high-order excitations which resemble standing sound waves. The hydrodynamicity and excitations of the ultra-cold atomic cloud are the main motivation for the experiments presented in this thesis. In the Utrecht experiment large BEC's up to a few hundred million atoms are produced, which are deeply in the hydrodynamic collisional regime. The macroscopic behavior of the cloud of atoms is dominated by inter-atomic collisions since the mean free path of the individual particles is much smaller than the size of the atomic sample and local equilibrium is established. The influence of the hydrodynamicity on the collective excitations can be investigated by measuring the quadrupole frequency of ultra-cold atomic clouds above the transition temperature Tc, where Bose-Einstein condensation occurs. This quadrupole frequency is determined by measuring the collective shape oscillations of the atomic cloud, where the oscillation frequency is influenced by inter-atomic collisions during the shape oscillations due to the hydrodynamicity of the atomic cloud. The hydrodynamic equations predict the existence of two sound modes in ultra-cold atomic gases below Tc. The speeds of sound are dependent on both the temperature and the chemical potential of the atomic cloud. For low enough temperatures or large enough chemical potential these two speeds of sound become comparable and reaching this regime experimentally allows measuring the speed of sound beyond this avoided crossing. An alternate method of measuring the speed of sound of ultra-cold atomic clouds is exploiting the analogy between a standing sound wave-pattern and high order excitations in BEC's, also referred to as Faraday waves. By exciting the wave-pattern with a frequency and measuring the wavenumber k of the wave-pattern, the speed of sound c can be extracted from the linear dispersion relation. In the process of exciting the standing wave-pattern, remarkable dynamics is discovered in the BECs. As a result of the excitation a large array of other modes are excited next to the wave-pattern. These modes are for example the dipole mode, the axial and radial quadrupole modes, and the scissor mode. This gives rise to complex dynamics in this hydrodynamic quantum mechanical system and although the ultra-cold sample is only excited with a very short pulsed excitation, these modes and the wave-pattern show a large degree of reproducibility during several seconds of time evolution.