Domain-wall dynamics in Bose-Einstein condensates with synthetic gauge fields.

Interactions in many-body physical systems, from condensed matter to high-energy physics, lead to the emergence of exotic particles. Examples are mesons in quantum chromodynamics and composite fermions in fractional quantum Hall systems, which arise from the dynamical coupling between matter and gauge fields1,2. The challenge of understanding the complexity of matter-gauge interaction can be aided by quantum simulations, for which ultracold atoms offer a versatile platform via the creation of artificial gauge fields. An important step towards simulating the physics of exotic emergent particles is the synthesis of artificial gauge fields whose state depends dynamically on the presence of matter. Here we demonstrate deterministic formation of domain walls in a stable Bose-Einstein condensate with a gauge field that is determined by the atomic density. The density-dependent gauge field is created by simultaneous modulations of an optical lattice potential and interatomic interactions, and results in domains of atoms condensed into two different momenta. Modelling the domain walls as elementary excitations, we find that the domain walls respond to synthetic electric field with a charge-to-mass ratio larger than and opposite to that of the bare atoms. Our work offers promising prospects to simulate the dynamics and interactions of previously undescribed excitations in quantum systems with dynamical gauge fields.

Transition from an atomic to a molecular Bose-Einstein condensate.

Molecular quantum gases (that is, ultracold and dense molecular gases) have many potential applications, including quantum control of chemical reactions, precision measurements, quantum simulation and quantum information processing1-3. For molecules, to reach the quantum regime usually requires efficient cooling at high densities, which is frequently hindered by fast inelastic collisions that heat and deplete the population of molecules4,5. Here we report the preparation of two-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) of spinning molecules by inducing pairing interactions in an atomic condensate near a g-wave Feshbach resonance6. The trap geometry and the low temperature of the molecules help to reduce inelastic loss, ensuring thermal equilibrium. From the equation-of-state measurement, we determine the molecular scattering length to be + 220(±30) Bohr radii (95% confidence interval). We also investigate the unpairing dynamics in the strong coupling regime and find that near the Feshbach resonance the dynamical timescale is consistent with the unitarity limit. Our work demonstrates the long-sought transition between atomic and molecular condensates, the bosonic analogue of the crossover from a BEC to a Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superfluid in a Fermi gas7-9. In addition, our experiment may shed light on condensed pairs with orbital angular momentum, where a novel anisotropic superfluid with non-zero surface current is predicted10,11, such as the A phase of 3He.

Jet Substructure in Fireworks Emission from Nonuniform and Rotating Bose-Einstein Condensates.

We show that jet emission from a Bose condensate with periodically driven interactions, also known as "Bose fireworks", contains essential information on the condensate wave function, which is difficult to obtain using standard detection methods. We illustrate the underlying physics with two examples. When condensates acquire phase patterns from external potentials or from vortices, the jets display novel substructure, such as oscillations or spirals, in their correlations. Through a comparison of theory, numerical simulations, and experiments, we show how one can quantitatively extract the phase and the helicity of a condensate from the emission pattern. Our work, demonstrating the strong link between jet emission and the underlying quantum system, bears on the recent emphasis on jet substructure in particle physics.