Quantum Institute: Visitor Schedule

The Quantum Lunch is regularly held on Thursdays in the Theoretical Division Conference Room, TA-3, Building 123, Room 121. For more information, contact Diego Dalvit.

September 14, 2006
12:30 PM

David Hall,
Amherst College

Binary Bose-Einstein Condensates

Abstract

The first interpenetrating binary superfluids were created at JILA in 1997. Nearly a decade later, we are poised to characterize fully the celebrated ${}^{87}$Rb pseudospin-1/2 binary condensate system in terms of its elastic and inelastic collision processes and rates. As in previous experiments, our binary condensate is created from a single condensate with a pulse of resonant radiation. Two condensates subsequently interact with one another, forming transient and approximately periodic atomic density distributions that exhibit striking coaxial ring patterns. In addition to providing information about the $s$-wave scattering lengths, the periodic patterns suggest an excitation of a low-frequency double-condensate collective mode.