183 research outputs found
Breakdown of Hydrodynamics in the Radial Breathing Mode of a Strongly-Interacting Fermi Gas
We measure the magnetic field dependence of the frequency and damping time
for the radial breathing mode of an optically trapped, Fermi gas of Li
atoms near a Feshbach resonance. The measurements address the apparent
discrepancy between the results of Kinast et al., [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 92},
150402 (2004)] and those of Bartenstein et al., [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 92},
203201 (2004)]. Over the range of magnetic field from 770 G to 910 G, the
measurements confirm the results of Kinast et al. Close to resonance, the
measured frequencies are in excellent agreement with predictions for a unitary
hydrodynamic gas. At a field of 925 G, the measured frequency begins to
decrease below predictions. For fields near 1080 G, we observe a breakdown of
hydrodynamic behavior, which is manifested by a sharp increase in frequency and
damping rate. The observed breakdown is in qualitative agreement with the sharp
transition observed by Bartenstein et al., at 910 G.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, 1 table. Revised in response to referees'
Comments. Published in PRA(R
Evidence for Superfluidity in a Resonantly Interacting Fermi Gas
We observe collective oscillations of a trapped, degenerate Fermi gas of
Li atoms at a magnetic field just above a Feshbach resonance, where the
two-body physics does not support a bound state. The gas exhibits a radial
breathing mode at a frequency of 2837(05) Hz, in excellent agreement with the
frequency of Hz predicted for a
{\em hydrodynamic} Fermi gas with unitarity limited interactions. The measured
damping times and frequencies are inconsistent with predictions for both the
collisionless mean field regime and for collisional hydrodynamics. These
observations provide the first evidence for superfluid hydrodynamics in a
resonantly interacting Fermi gas.Comment: 5 pages, ReVTeX4, 2 eps figs. Resubmitted to PRL in response to
referees' comments. Title and abstract changed. Corrected error in Table 1,
atom numbers for 0.33 TF and 0.5 TF data were interchanged. Corrected typo in
ref 3. Added new figure of damping time versus temperatur
Measurement of the Entropy and Critical Temperature of a Strongly Interacting Fermi Gas
We report a model-independent measurement of the entropy, energy, and
critical temperature of a degenerate, strongly interacting Fermi gas of atoms.
The total energy is determined from the mean square cloud size in the strongly
interacting regime, where the gas exhibits universal behavior. The entropy is
measured by sweeping a bias magnetic field to adiabatically tune the gas from
the strongly interacting regime to a weakly interacting regime, where the
entropy is known from the cloud size after the sweep. The dependence of the
entropy on the total energy quantitatively tests predictions of the
finite-temperature thermodynamics.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figure
Universal Quantum Viscosity in a Unitary Fermi Gas
A Fermi gas of atoms with resonant interactions is predicted to obey
universal hydrodynamics, where the shear viscosity and other transport
coefficients are universal functions of the density and temperature. At low
temperatures, the viscosity has a universal quantum scale where
is the density, while at high temperatures the natural scale is
where is the thermal momentum. We employ breathing mode damping to
measure the shear viscosity at low temperature. At high temperature , we
employ anisotropic expansion of the cloud to find the viscosity, which exhibits
precise scaling. In both experiments, universal hydrodynamic
equations including friction and heating are used to extract the viscosity. We
estimate the ratio of the shear viscosity to the entropy density and compare to
that of a perfect fluid.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure
Large-Area Atom Interferometry with Frequency-Swept Raman Adiabatic Passage
We demonstrate light-pulse atom interferometry with large-momentum-transfer atom optics based on stimulated Raman transitions and frequency-swept adiabatic rapid passage. Our atom optics have produced momentum splittings of up to 30 photon recoil momenta in an acceleration-sensitive interferometer for laser cooled atoms. We experimentally verify the enhancement of phase shift per unit acceleration and characterize interferometer contrast loss. By forgoing evaporative cooling and velocity selection, this method lowers the atom shot-noise-limited measurement uncertainty and enables large-area atom interferometry at higher data rates.Charles Stark Draper Laboratory (Fellowship
Robust Ramsey sequences with Raman adiabatic rapid passage
We present a method for robust timekeeping in which alkali-metal atoms are interrogated in a Ramsey sequence based on stimulated Raman transitions with optical photons. To suppress systematic effects introduced by differential ac Stark shifts and optical intensity gradients, we employ atom optics derived from Raman adiabatic rapid passage (ARP). Raman ARP drives coherent transfer between the alkali-metal hyperfine ground states via a sweep of the Raman detuning through the two-photon resonance. Our experimental implementation of Raman ARP reduced the phase sensitivity of Ramsey sequences to Stark shifts in [superscript 133]Cs atoms by about two orders of magnitude, relative to fixed-frequency Raman transitions. This technique also preserved Ramsey fringe contrast for cloud displacements reaching the 1/e[superscript 2] intensity radius of the laser beam. In a magnetically unshielded apparatus, second-order Zeeman shifts limited the fractional frequency uncertainty to ~3.5 × 10[superscript −12] after about 2500 s of averaging.Charles Stark Draper Laboratory (Fellowship Program)Charles Stark Draper Laborator
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