On the survival of the quantum depletion of a condensate after release from a magnetic trap.

We present observations of the high momentum tail in expanding Bose-Einstein condensates of metastable Helium atoms released from a harmonic trap. The far-field density profile exhibits features that support identification of the tails of the momentum distribution as originating in the in-situ quantum depletion prior to release. Thus, we corroborate recent observations of slowly-decaying tails in the far-field beyond the thermal component. This observation is in conflict with the hydrodynamic theory, which predicts that the in-situ depletion does not survive when atoms are released from a trap. Indeed, the depleted tails even appear stronger in the far-field than expected before release, and we discuss the challenges of interpreting this in terms of the Tan contact in the trapped gas. In complement to these observations, full quantum simulations of the experiment show that, under the right conditions, the depletion can persist into the far field after expansion. Moreover, the simulations provide mechanisms for survival and for the the large-momentum tails to appear stronger after expansion due to an acceleration of the depleted atoms by the mean-field potential. However, while in qualitative agreement, the final depletion observed in the experiment is much larger than in the simulation.

Quantum dynamics of long-range interacting systems using the positive-P and gauge-P representations.

We provide the necessary framework for carrying out stochastic positive-P and gauge-P simulations of bosonic systems with long-range interactions. In these approaches, the quantum evolution is sampled by trajectories in phase space, allowing calculation of correlations without truncation of the Hilbert space or other approximations to the quantum state. The main drawback is that the simulation time is limited by noise arising from interactions. We show that the long-range character of these interactions does not further increase the limitations of these methods, in contrast to the situation for alternatives such as the density matrix renormalization group. Furthermore, stochastic gauge techniques can also successfully extend simulation times in the long-range-interaction case, by making using of parameters that affect the noise properties of trajectories, without affecting physical observables. We derive essential results that significantly aid the use of these methods: estimates of the available simulation time, optimized stochastic gauges, a general form of the characteristic stochastic variance, and adaptations for very large systems. Testing the performance of particular drift and diffusion gauges for nonlocal interactions, we find that, for small to medium systems, drift gauges are beneficial, whereas for sufficiently large systems, it is optimal to use only a diffusion gauge. The methods are illustrated with direct numerical simulations of interaction quenches in extended Bose-Hubbard lattice systems and the excitation of Rydberg states in a Bose-Einstein condensate, also without the need for the typical frozen gas approximation. We demonstrate that gauges can indeed lengthen the useful simulation time.

Violation of the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality with matter waves.

The Cauchy-Schwarz (CS) inequality-one of the most widely used and important inequalities in mathematics-can be formulated as an upper bound to the strength of correlations between classically fluctuating quantities. Quantum-mechanical correlations can, however, exceed classical bounds. Here we realize four-wave mixing of atomic matter waves using colliding Bose-Einstein condensates, and demonstrate the violation of a multimode CS inequality for atom number correlations in opposite zones of the collision halo. The correlated atoms have large spatial separations and therefore open new opportunities for extending fundamental quantum-nonlocality tests to ensembles of massive particles.

Solitons as the early stage of quasicondensate formation during evaporative cooling.

We calculate the evaporative cooling dynamics of trapped one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates for parameters leading to a range of condensates and quasicondensates in the final equilibrium state, using the classical fields method. We confirm that solitons are created during the evaporation process by the Kibble-Zurek mechanism, but subsequently dissipate during thermalization. However, their signature remains in the phase coherence length, which is approximately conserved during dissipation in this system.

Spontaneous four-wave mixing of de Broglie waves: beyond optics.

We investigate the atom-optical analog of degenerate four-wave mixing by colliding two Bose-Einstein condensates of metastable helium. The momentum distribution of the scattered atoms is measured in three dimensions. A simple analogy with photon phase matching conditions suggests a spherical final distribution. We find, however, that it is an ellipsoid with radii smaller than the initial collision momenta. Numerical and analytical calculations agree with this and reveal the interplay between many-body effects, mean-field interaction, and the anisotropy of the source condensate.

Sub-poissonian number differences in four-wave mixing of matter waves.

We demonstrate sub-Poissonian number differences in four-wave mixing of Bose-Einstein condensates of metastable helium. The collision between two Bose-Einstein condensates produces a scattering halo populated by pairs of atoms of opposing velocities, which we divide into several symmetric zones. We show that the atom number difference for opposing zones has sub-Poissonian noise fluctuations, whereas that of nonopposing zones is well described by shot noise. The atom pairs produced in a dual number state are well adapted to sub-shot-noise interferometry and studies of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-type nonlocality tests.

Simulation of complete many-body quantum dynamics using controlled quantum-semiclassical hybrids.

A controlled hybridization between full quantum dynamics and semiclassical approaches (mean-field and truncated Wigner) is implemented for interacting many-boson systems. It is then demonstrated how simulating the resulting hybrid evolution equations allows one to obtain the full quantum dynamics for much longer times than is possible using an exact treatment directly. A collision of sodium BECs with 1.5 x 10;{5} atoms is simulated, in a regime that is difficult to describe semiclassically. The uncertainty of physical quantities depends on the statistics of the full quantum prediction. Cutoffs are minimized to a discretization of the Hamiltonian. The technique presented is quite general and extension to other systems is considered.

Correlations in a BEC collision: first-principles quantum dynamics with 150,000 atoms.

The quantum dynamics of colliding Bose-Einstein condensates with 150,000 atoms are simulated directly from the Hamiltonian using the stochastic positive-P method. Two-body correlations between the scattered atoms and their velocity distribution are found for experimentally accessible parameters. Hanbury Brown-Twiss or thermal-like correlations are seen for copropagating atoms, while number correlations for counterpropagating atoms are even stronger than thermal correlations at short times. The coherent phase grains grow in size as the collision progresses with the onset of growth coinciding with the beginning of stimulated scattering. The method is versatile and usable for a range of cold atom systems.

Canonical Bose gas simulations with stochastic gauges.

A technique to simulate the grand canonical ensembles of interacting Bose gases is presented. Results are generated for many temperatures by averaging over energy-weighted stochastic paths, each corresponding to a solution of coupled Gross-Pitaevskii equations with phase noise. The stochastic gauge method used relies on an off-diagonal coherent-state expansion, thus taking into account all quantum correlations. As an example, the second-order spatial correlation function and momentum distribution for an interacting 1D Bose gas are calculated.