Collective oscillations of dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates and accurate comparison between contact and dipolar interaction

We propose a scheme for the measurement of the s-wave scattering length $a$ of an atom or molecule with significant dipole-dipole interaction with an accuracy at the percent level. The frequencies of the collective oscillations of a Bose-Einstein condensate are shifted by the magnetic dipole interaction. The shift is polarization dependent and proportional to the ratio $\epsilon_{dd}$ of dipolar and s-wave coupling constants. Measuring the differences in the frequencies for different polarization we can extract the value of $\epsilon_{dd}$ and thus measure $a$. We calculate the frequency shifts for a large variety of non-axisymmetric harmonic traps in the Thomas-Fermi limit and find optimal trapping geometries to maximize the shifts.Comment: 4 pages, brief repor

Calibrating dipolar interaction in an atomic condensate

We revisit the topic of a dipolar condensate with the recently derived more rigorous pseudo-potential for dipole-dipole interaction [A. Derevianko, Phys. Rev. A {\bf 67}, 033607 (2003)]. Based on the highly successful variational technique, we find that all dipolar effects estimated before (using the bare dipole-dipole interaction) become significantly larger, i.e. are amplified by the new velocity-dependent pseudo-potential, especially in the limit of large or small trap aspect ratios. This result points to a promising prospect for detecting dipolar effects inside an atomic condensate.Comment: 5 figures, to be publishe

Novel vortex structures in dipolar condensates

We investigate the properties of single vortices and of vortex lattice in a rotating dipolar condensate. We show that vortices in this system possess many novel features induced by the long-range anisotropic dipolar interaction between particles. For example, when the dipoles are polarized along the rotation axis, vortices may display a crater-like structure; when dipoles are polarized orthogonal to the rotation axis, vortex cores takes an elliptical shape and the vortex lattice no longer possesses hexagonal symmetry.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Thermodynamic properties of a dipolar Fermi gas

Based on the semi-classical theory, we investigate the thermodynamic properties of a dipolar Fermi gas. Through a self-consistent procedure, we numerically obtain the phase space distribution function at finite temperature. We show that the deformations in both momentum and real space becomes smaller and smaller as one increases the temperature. For homogeneous case, we also calculate pressure, entropy, and heat capacity. In particular, at low temperature limit and in weak interaction regime, we obtain an analytic expression for the entropy, which agrees qualitatively with our numerical result. The stability of a trapped gas at finite temperature is also explored