Observation of vortex dipoles in an oblate Bose-Einstein condensate

We report experimental observations and numerical simulations of the formation, dynamics, and lifetimes of single and multiply charged quantized vortex dipoles in highly oblate dilute-gas Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs). We nucleate pairs of vortices of opposite charge (vortex dipoles) by forcing superfluid flow around a repulsive gaussian obstacle within the BEC. By controlling the flow velocity we determine the critical velocity for the nucleation of a single vortex dipole, with excellent agreement between experimental and numerical results. We present measurements of vortex dipole dynamics, finding that the vortex cores of opposite charge can exist for many seconds and that annihilation is inhibited in our highly oblate trap geometry. For sufficiently rapid flow velocities we find that clusters of like-charge vortices aggregate into long-lived dipolar flow structures.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, 1 EPAPS fil

Luttinger Liquid in the Core of Screw Dislocation in Helium-4

On the basis of first-principle Monte Carlo simulations we find that the screw dislocation along the hexagonal axis of an hcp He4 crystal features a superfluid core. This is the first example of a regular quasi-one-dimensional supersolid, and one of the cleanest cases of a regular Luttinger-liquid system. In contrast, the same type of screw dislocation in solid Hydrogen is insulating.Comment: replaced with revised versio

The effect of light assisted collisions on matter wave coherence in superradiant Bose-Einstein condensates

We investigate experimentally the effects of light assisted collisions on the coherence between momentum states in Bose-Einstein condensates. The onset of superradiant Rayleigh scattering serves as a sensitive monitor for matter wave coherence. A subtle interplay of binary and collective effects leads to a profound asymmetry between the two sides of the atomic resonance and provides far bigger coherence loss rates for a condensate bathed in blue detuned light than previously estimated. We present a simplified quantitative model containing the essential physics to explain our experimental data and point at a new experimental route to study strongly coupled light matter systems.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

Truncated-Determinant Diagrammatic Monte Carlo for Fermions with Contact Interaction

For some models of interacting fermions the known solution to the notorious sign-problem in Monte Carlo (MC) simulations is to work with macroscopic fermionic determinants; the price, however, is a macroscopic scaling of the numerical effort spent on elementary local updates. We find that the {\it ratio} of two macroscopic determinants can be found with any desired accuracy by considering truncated (local in space and time) matices. In this respect, MC for interacting fermionic systems becomes similar to that for the sign-problem-free bosonic systems with system-size independent update cost. We demonstrate the utility of the truncated-determinant method by simulating the attractive Hubbard model within the MC scheme based on partially summed Feynman diagrams. We conjecture that similar approach may be useful in other implementations of the sign-free determinant schemes.Comment: results of the actual Hubbard model simulations are adde

ab-plane tunneling and Andreev spectroscopy of superconducting gap and pseudogap in (Bi,Pb)2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10 and Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8

We have measured the temperature dependence of gap features revealed by Andreev reflection Delta_s and by tunneling Delta in the ab-plane of optimal and slightly overdoped microcrystals of (BiPb)2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10 (Bi2223) with critical temperature Tc=110-115 K, and Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 (Bi2212) with Tc=80-84 K. The tunneling conductance of Bi2223-Insulator-Bi2223 junction shows peaks at the 2Delta gap voltage, as well as dips and broad humps at other voltages. In Bi2223, similarly to the well known Bi2212 spectra, the energies corresponding to 2Delta, to the dip, and to the hump structure are in the ratio of 2:3:4. This confirms that the dip and hump features are generic to the high temperature superconductors, irrespective of the number of CuO2 layers or the BiO superstructure. On the other hand, in both compounds Delta(T) and Delta_s(T) dependences are completely different, and we conclude that the two entities have different nature.Comment: LaTeX 2e, 17 pages, 7 figures in .eps forma

Diagrammatic Quantum Monte Carlo for Two-Body Problem: Exciton

We present a novel method for precise numerical solution of the irreducible two-body problem and apply it to excitons in solids. The approach is based on the Monte Carlo simulation of the two-body Green function specified by Feynman's diagrammatic expansion. Our method does not rely on the specific form of the electron and hole dispersion laws and is valid for any attractive electron-hole potential. We establish limits of validity of the Wannier (large radius) and Frenkel (small radius) approximations, present accurate data for the intermediate radius excitons, and give evidence for the charge transfer nature of the monopolar exciton in mixed valence materials.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Classical Region of a Trapped Bose Gas

The classical region of a Bose gas consists of all single-particle modes that have a high average occupation and are well-described by a classical field. Highly-occupied modes only occur in massive Bose gases at ultra-cold temperatures, in contrast to the photon case where there are highly-occupied modes at all temperatures. For the Bose gas the number of these modes is dependent on the temperature, the total number of particles and their interaction strength. In this paper we characterize the classical region of a harmonically trapped Bose gas over a wide parameter regime. We use a Hartree-Fock approach to account for the effects of interactions, which we observe to significantly change the classical region as compared to the idealized case. We compare our results to full classical field calculations and show that the Hartree-Fock approach provides a qualitatively accurate description of classical region for the interacting gas.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures; updated to include new results with interaction

Superfluid--Insulator Transition in Commensurate Disordered Bosonic Systems:Large-Scale Worm-Algorithm Simulations

We report results of large-scale Monte Carlo simulations of superfluid--insulator transitions in commensurate 2D bosonic systems. In the case of off-diagonal disorder (quantum percolation), we find that the transition is to a gapless incompressible insulator, and its dynamical critical exponent is $z=1.65 \pm 0.2$. In the case of diagonal disorder, we prove the conjecture that rare statistical fluctuations are inseparable from critical fluctuations on the largest scales and ultimately result in the crossover to the generic universality class (apparently with $z=2$). However, even at strong disorder, the universal behavior sets in only at very large space-time distances. This explains why previous studies of smaller clusters mimicked a direct superfluid--Mott-insulator transition.Comment: 6 pages, Latex, 7 figure

Local stress and superfluid properties of solid Helium-4

More than half a century ago Penrose asked: are the superfluid and solid state of matter mutually exclusive or do there exist "supersolid" materials where the atoms form a regular lattice and simultaneously flow without friction? Recent experiments provide evidence that supersolid behavior indeed exists in Helium-4 -- the most quantum material known in Nature. In this paper we show that large local strain in the vicinity of crystalline defects is the origin of supersolidity in Helium-4. Although ideal crystals of Helium-4 are not supersolid, the gap for vacancy creation closes when applying a moderate stress. While a homogeneous system simply becomes unstable at this point, the stressed core of crystalline defects (dislocations and grain boundaries) undergoes a radical transformation and can become superfluid

Nonlinear quantum model for atomic Josephson junctions with one and two bosonic species

We study atomic Josephson junctions (AJJs) with one and two bosonic species confined by a double-well potential. Proceeding from the second quantized Hamiltonian, we show that it is possible to describe the zero-temperature AJJs microscopic dynamics by means of extended Bose-Hubbard (EBH) models, which include usually-neglected nonlinear terms. Within the mean-field approximation, the Heisenberg equations derived from such two-mode models provide a description of AJJs macroscopic dynamics in terms of ordinary differential equations (ODEs). We discuss the possibility to distinguish the Rabi, Josephson, and Fock regimes, in terms of the macroscopic parameters which appear in the EBH Hamiltonians and, then, in the ODEs. We compare the predictions for the relative populations of the Bose gases atoms in the two wells obtained from the numerical solutions of the two-mode ODEs, with those deriving from the direct numerical integration of the Gross-Pitaevskii equations (GPEs). Our investigations shows that the nonlinear terms of the ODEs are crucial to achieve a good agreement between ODEs and GPEs approaches, and in particular to give quantitative predictions of the self-trapping regime.Comment: Accepted for the publication in J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phy