Bose-Einstein Condensates in Strongly Disordered Traps

A Bose-Einstein condensate in an external potential consisting of a superposition of a harmonic and a random potential is considered theoretically. From a semi-quantitative analysis we find the size, shape and excitation energy as a function of the disorder strength. For positive scattering length and sufficiently strong disorder the condensate decays into fragments each of the size of the Larkin length ${\cal L}$. This state is stable over a large range of particle numbers. The frequency of the breathing mode scales as $1/{\cal L}^2$. For negative scattering length a condensate of size ${\cal L}$ may exist as a metastable state. These finding are generalized to anisotropic traps

Kinematic analysis of Sculptor Group galaxies

An analysis of the kinematics of the five major spiral galaxies in the Sculptor Group is presented. These galaxies are analyzed using the method of harmonic expansion of the velocity field as described in Schoenmakers, Franx and de Zeeuw (1997). Three different types of kinematic distortions were found: warps, lopsidedness and elongation. All the Sculptor galaxies show kinematic lopsidedness, two show signs of global elongation and two are kinematically warped. The detected kinematic distortions are well in excess of those typically found for isolated galaxies.</p