Observation of Microcanonical Atom Number Fluctuations in a Bose-Einstein Condensate.

Quantum systems are typically characterized by the inherent fluctuation of their physical observables. Despite this fundamental importance, the investigation of the fluctuations in interacting quantum systems at finite temperature continues to pose considerable theoretical and experimental challenges. Here we report the characterization of atom number fluctuations in weakly interacting Bose-Einstein condensates. Technical fluctuations are mitigated through a combination of nondestructive detection and active stabilization of the cooling sequence. We observe fluctuations reduced by 27% below the canonical expectation for a noninteracting gas, revealing the microcanonical nature of our system. The peak fluctuations have near linear scaling with atom number ΔN_{0,p}^{2}∝N^{1.134} in an experimentally accessible transition region outside the thermodynamic limit. Our experimental results thus set a benchmark for theoretical calculations under typical experimental conditions.

Observation of Atom Number Fluctuations in a Bose-Einstein Condensate.

Fluctuations are a key property of both classical and quantum systems. While the fluctuations are well understood for many quantum systems at zero temperature, the case of an interacting quantum system at finite temperature still poses numerous challenges. Despite intense theoretical investigations of atom number fluctuations in Bose-Einstein condensates, their amplitude in experimentally relevant interacting systems is still not fully understood. Moreover, technical limitations have prevented their experimental investigation to date. Here we report the observation of these fluctuations. Our experiments are based on a stabilization technique, which allows for the preparation of ultracold thermal clouds at the shot noise level, thereby eliminating numerous technical noise sources. Furthermore, we make use of the correlations established by the evaporative cooling process to precisely determine the fluctuations and the sample temperature. This allows us to observe a telltale signature: the sudden increase in fluctuations of the condensate atom number close to the critical temperature.

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.

Introduction.

Achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gas by means of evaporative cooling has made headlines all over the world. The theory, originally developed for homogeneous systems, has been quickly modified to account for the trapping potential. For the most part, however, it is a mean field theory at zero absolute temperature. The most interesting features of any finite size multiparticle system are those related to statistics, fluctuations and coherence and the way these properties depend on temperature. This special issue deals with these features.

Multi-mode description of an interacting Bose-Einstein condensate.

We study the equilibrium dynamics of a weakly interacting Bose-Einstein condensate trapped in a box. In our approach we use a semiclassical approximation similar to the description of a multi-mode laser. In dynamical equations derived from a full N-body quantum Hamiltonian we substitute all creation (and annihilation) operators (of a particle in a given box state) by appropriate c-number amplitudes. The set of nonlinear equations obtained in this way is solved numerically. We show that on the time scale of a few miliseconds the system exhibits relaxation -- reaches an equilibrium with populations of different eigenstates fluctuating around their mean values.

Quantum multimode model of elastic scattering from Bose-Einstein condensates.

Mean field approximation treats only coherent aspects of the evolution of a Bose-Einstein condensate. However, in many experiments some atoms scatter out of the condensate. We study a semianalytic model of two counterpropagating atomic Gaussian wave packets incorporating the dynamics of incoherent scattering processes. Within the model we can treat processes of the elastic collision of atoms into the initially empty modes, and observe how, with growing occupation, the bosonic enhancement is slowly kicking in. A condition for the bosonic enhancement effect is found in terms of relevant parameters. Scattered atoms form a squeezed state. Not only are we able to calculate the dynamics of mode occupation, but also the full statistics of scattered atoms.

Multimode dynamics of a coupled ultracold atomic-molecular system.

We analyze the coherent multimode dynamics of a system of coupled atomic and molecular Bose gases. Starting from an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate with a small thermal component, we observe a complete depletion of the atomic and molecular condensate modes on a short time scale due to a significant population of excited states. Giant coherent oscillations between the two condensates for typical parameters are almost completely suppressed. Our results cast serious doubts on the common use of the 2-mode model for the description of coupled ultracold atomic-molecular systems and should be considered when planning future experiments with ultracold molecules.

Soliton trains in Bose-Fermi mixtures.

We theoretically consider the formation of bright solitons in a mixture of Bose and Fermi degenerate gases. While we assume the forces between atoms in a pure Bose component to be effectively repulsive, their character can be changed from repulsive to attractive in the presence of fermions provided the Bose and Fermi gases attract each other strongly enough. In such a regime the Bose component becomes a gas of effectively attractive atoms. Hence, generating bright solitons in the bosonic gas is possible. Indeed, after a sudden increase of the strength of attraction between bosons and fermions (realized by using a Feshbach resonance technique or by firm radial squeezing of both samples) soliton trains appear in the Bose-Fermi mixture.