Many-body decay of the gapped lowest excitation of a Bose-Einstein condensate

Jinyi Zhang; Christoph Eigen; Wei Zheng; Jake A.P. Glidden; Timon A. Hilker; Samuel J. Garratt; Raphael Lopes; Nigel R. Cooper; Zoran Hadzibabic; Nir Navon

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.060402

Many-body decay of the gapped lowest excitation of a Bose-Einstein condensate

Jinyi Zhang, Christoph Eigen, Wei Zheng, Jake A.P. Glidden, Timon A. Hilker, Samuel J. Garratt, Raphael Lopes, Nigel R. Cooper, Zoran Hadzibabic, Nir Navon

Physics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

7 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We study the decay mechanism of the gapped lowest-lying axial excitation of a quasipure atomic Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a cylindrical box trap. Owing to the absence of accessible lower-energy modes, or direct coupling to an external bath, this excitation is protected against one-body (linear) decay, and the damping mechanism is exclusively nonlinear. We develop a universal theoretical model that explains this fundamentally nonlinear damping as a process whereby two quanta of the gapped lowest excitation mode couple to a higher-energy mode, which subsequently decays into a continuum. We find quantitative agreement between our experiments and the predictions of this model. Finally, by strongly driving the system below its (lowest) resonant frequency, we observe third-harmonic generation, a hallmark of nonlinear behavior.

Original language	English
Article number	060402
Number of pages	6
Journal	Physical Review Letters
Volume	126
Issue number	6
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.060402
Publication status	Published - 12 Feb 2021

Funding

This work was supported by EPSRC [Grants No. EP/N011759/1, No. EP/P009565/1, and No. EP/ K030094/1], ERC (QBox), QuantERA (NAQUAS, EPSRC Grant No. EP/R043396/1). N.N. acknowledges support from Trinity College (Cambridge), the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and NSF CAREER (Grant No. 1945324). C.E. 060402-4PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 126, (2021) acknowledges support from Jesus College (Cambridge). T. A.H. acknowledges support from the EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie program [Grant No. MSCA-IF- 2018 840081]. Z.H. acknowledges support from the Royal Society Wolfson Fellowship. N. R.C. acknowledges the support of the Simons Foundation.

Keywords

Bose-Einstein condensates
Dissipative dynamics
quasiparticles and collective excitations

Access to Document

10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.060402

https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.11363

Cite this

@article{253a534425d24f7bb1eabb86dc83532c,

title = "Many-body decay of the gapped lowest excitation of a Bose-Einstein condensate",

abstract = "We study the decay mechanism of the gapped lowest-lying axial excitation of a quasipure atomic Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a cylindrical box trap. Owing to the absence of accessible lower-energy modes, or direct coupling to an external bath, this excitation is protected against one-body (linear) decay, and the damping mechanism is exclusively nonlinear. We develop a universal theoretical model that explains this fundamentally nonlinear damping as a process whereby two quanta of the gapped lowest excitation mode couple to a higher-energy mode, which subsequently decays into a continuum. We find quantitative agreement between our experiments and the predictions of this model. Finally, by strongly driving the system below its (lowest) resonant frequency, we observe third-harmonic generation, a hallmark of nonlinear behavior.",

keywords = "Bose-Einstein condensates, Dissipative dynamics, quasiparticles and collective excitations",

author = "Jinyi Zhang and Christoph Eigen and Wei Zheng and Glidden, {Jake A.P.} and Hilker, {Timon A.} and Garratt, {Samuel J.} and Raphael Lopes and Cooper, {Nigel R.} and Zoran Hadzibabic and Nir Navon",

year = "2021",

month = feb,

day = "12",

doi = "10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.060402",

language = "English",

volume = "126",

journal = "Physical Review Letters",

issn = "0031-9007",

publisher = "American Physical Society",

number = "6",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Many-body decay of the gapped lowest excitation of a Bose-Einstein condensate

AU - Zhang, Jinyi

AU - Eigen, Christoph

AU - Zheng, Wei

AU - Glidden, Jake A.P.

AU - Hilker, Timon A.

AU - Garratt, Samuel J.

AU - Lopes, Raphael

AU - Cooper, Nigel R.

AU - Hadzibabic, Zoran

AU - Navon, Nir

PY - 2021/2/12

Y1 - 2021/2/12

N2 - We study the decay mechanism of the gapped lowest-lying axial excitation of a quasipure atomic Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a cylindrical box trap. Owing to the absence of accessible lower-energy modes, or direct coupling to an external bath, this excitation is protected against one-body (linear) decay, and the damping mechanism is exclusively nonlinear. We develop a universal theoretical model that explains this fundamentally nonlinear damping as a process whereby two quanta of the gapped lowest excitation mode couple to a higher-energy mode, which subsequently decays into a continuum. We find quantitative agreement between our experiments and the predictions of this model. Finally, by strongly driving the system below its (lowest) resonant frequency, we observe third-harmonic generation, a hallmark of nonlinear behavior.

AB - We study the decay mechanism of the gapped lowest-lying axial excitation of a quasipure atomic Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a cylindrical box trap. Owing to the absence of accessible lower-energy modes, or direct coupling to an external bath, this excitation is protected against one-body (linear) decay, and the damping mechanism is exclusively nonlinear. We develop a universal theoretical model that explains this fundamentally nonlinear damping as a process whereby two quanta of the gapped lowest excitation mode couple to a higher-energy mode, which subsequently decays into a continuum. We find quantitative agreement between our experiments and the predictions of this model. Finally, by strongly driving the system below its (lowest) resonant frequency, we observe third-harmonic generation, a hallmark of nonlinear behavior.

KW - Bose-Einstein condensates

KW - Dissipative dynamics

KW - quasiparticles and collective excitations

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85100880726&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.63897

U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.060402

DO - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.060402

M3 - Article

C2 - 33635703

AN - SCOPUS:85100880726

SN - 0031-9007

VL - 126

JO - Physical Review Letters

JF - Physical Review Letters

IS - 6

M1 - 060402

ER -

Many-body decay of the gapped lowest excitation of a Bose-Einstein condensate

Abstract

Funding

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this