1,680 research outputs found
Observation of Topologically Stable 2D Skyrmions in an Antiferromagnetic Spinor Bose-Einstein Condensate
We present the creation and time evolution of two-dimensional Skyrmion
excitations in an antiferromagnetic spinor Bose-Einstein condensate. Using a
spin rotation method, the Skyrmion spin textures were imprinted on a sodium
condensate in a polar phase, where the two-dimensional Skyrmion is
topologically protected. The Skyrmion was observed to be stable on a short time
scale of a few tens of ms but to have dynamical instability to deform its shape
and eventually decay to a uniform spin texture. The deformed spin textures
reveal that the decay dynamics involves breaking the polar phase inside the
condensate without having topological charge density flow through the boundary
of the finite-sized sample. We discuss the possible formation of half-quantum
vortices in the deformation process.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure
Role of thermal friction in relaxation of turbulent Bose-Einstein condensates
In recent experiments, the relaxation dynamics of highly oblate, turbulent
Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) was investigated by measuring the vortex decay
rates in various sample conditions [Phys. Rev. A , 063627 (2014)] and,
separately, the thermal friction coefficient for vortex motion was
measured from the long-time evolution of a corotating vortex pair in a BEC
[Phys. Rev. A , 051601(R) (2015)]. We present a comparative analysis of
the experimental results, and find that the vortex decay rate is
almost linearly proportional to . We perform numerical simulations of
the time evolution of a turbulent BEC using a point-vortex model equipped with
longitudinal friction and vortex-antivortex pair annihilation, and observe that
the linear dependence of on is quantitatively accounted for
in the dissipative point-vortex model. The numerical simulations reveal that
thermal friction in the experiment was too strong to allow for the emergence of
a vortex-clustered state out of decaying turbulence.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure
Periodic shedding of vortex dipoles from a moving penetrable obstacle in a Bose-Einstein condensate
We investigate vortex shedding from a moving penetrable obstacle in a highly
oblate Bose-Einstein condensate. The penetrable obstacle is formed by a
repulsive Gaussian laser beam that has the potential barrier height lower than
the chemical potential of the condensate. The moving obstacle periodically
generates vortex dipoles and the vortex shedding frequency linearly
increases with the obstacle velocity as , where is a
critical velocity. Based on periodic shedding behavior, we demonstrate
deterministic generation of a single vortex dipole by applying a short linear
sweep of a laser beam. This method will allow further controlled vortex
experiments such as dipole-dipole collisions.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figure
Critical Velocity for Vortex Shedding in a Bose-Einstein Condensate
We present measurements of the critical velocity for vortex shedding in a
highly oblate Bose-Einstein condensate with a moving repulsive Gaussian laser
beam. As a function of the barrier height , the critical velocity
shows a dip structure having a minimum at , where is
the chemical potential of the condensate. At fixed , we
observe that the ratio of to the speed of sound monotonically
increases for decreasing , where is the beam width and
is the condensate healing length. The measured upper bound for
is about 0.4, which is in good agreement with theoretical predictions for a
two-dimensional superflow past a circular cylinder. We explain our results with
the density reduction effect of the soft boundary of the Gaussian obstacle,
based on the local Landau criterion for superfluidity.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Evidence for a preformed Cooper pair model in the pseudogap spectra of a Ca10(Pt4As8)(Fe2As2)5 single crystal with a nodal superconducting gap
For high-Tc superconductors, clarifying the role and origin of the pseudogap
is essential for understanding the pairing mechanism. Among the various models
describing the pseudogap, the preformed Cooper pair model is a potential
candidate. Therefore, we present experimental evidence for the preformed Cooper
pair model by studying the pseudogap spectrum observed in the optical
conductivity of a Ca10(Pt4As8)(Fe2As2)5 (Tc = 34.6 K) single crystal. We
observed a clear pseudogap structure in the optical conductivity and observed
its temperature dependence. In the superconducting (SC) state, one SC gap with
a gap size of {\Delta} = 26 cm-1, a scattering rate of 1/{\tau} = 360 cm-1 and
a low-frequency extra Drude component were observed. Spectral weight analysis
revealed that the SC gap and pseudogap are formed from the same Drude band.
This means that the pseudogap is a gap structure observed as a result of a
continuous temperature evolution of the SC gap observed below Tc. This provides
clear experimental evidence for the preformed Cooper pair model.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure
Relaxation of superfluid turbulence in highly oblate Bose-Einstein condensates
We investigate thermal relaxation of superfluid turbulence in a highly oblate
Bose-Einstein condensate. We generate turbulent flow in the condensate by
sweeping the center region of the condensate with a repulsive optical
potential. The turbulent condensate shows a spatially disordered distribution
of quantized vortices and the vortex number of the condensate exhibits
nonexponential decay behavior which we attribute to the vortex pair
annihilation. The vortex-antivortex collisions in the condensate are identified
with crescent-shaped, coalesced vortex cores. We observe that the
nonexponential decay of the vortex number is quantitatively well described by a
rate equation consisting of one-body and two-body decay terms. In our
measurement, we find that the local two-body decay rate is closely proportional
to , where is the temperature and is the chemical potential.Comment: 7 pages, 9 figure
Observation of a Geometric Hall Effect in a Spinor Bose-Einstein Condensate with a Skyrmion Spin Texture
For a spin-carrying particle moving in a spatially varying magnetic field,
effective electromagnetic forces can arise due to the geometric phase
associated with adiabatic spin rotation of the particle. We report the
observation of a geometric Hall effect in a spinor Bose-Einstein condensate
with a skyrmion spin texture. Under translational oscillations of the spin
texture, the condensate resonantly develops a circular motion in a harmonic
trap, demonstrating the existence of an effective Lorentz force. When the
condensate circulates, quantized vortices are nucleated in the boundary region
of the condensate and the vortex number increases over 100 without significant
heating. We attribute the vortex nucleation to the shearing effect of the
effective Lorentz force from the inhomogeneous effective magnetic field.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figure
Vortex detection in atomic Bose-Einstein condensates using neural networks trained on synthetic images
Quantum vortices in atomic Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) are topological
defects characterized by quantized circulation of particles around them. In
experimental studies, vortices are commonly detected by time-of-flight imaging,
where their density-depleted cores are enlarged. In this work, we describe a
machine learning-based method for detecting vortices in experimental BEC
images, particularly focusing on turbulent condensates containing irregularly
distributed vortices. Our approach employs a convolutional neural network (CNN)
trained solely on synthetic simulated images, eliminating the need for manual
labeling of the vortex positions as ground truth. We find that the CNN achieves
accurate vortex detection in real experimental images, thereby facilitating
analysis of large experimental datasets without being constrained by specific
experimental conditions. This novel approach represents a significant
advancement in studying quantum vortex dynamics and streamlines the analysis
process in the investigation of turbulent BECs.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure
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