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Spontaneous creation of Kibble–Zurek solitons in a Bose–Einstein condensate

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Abstract

When a system crosses a second-order phase transition on a finite timescale, spontaneous symmetry breaking can cause the development of domains with independent order parameters, which then grow and approach each other creating boundary defects. This is known as the Kibble–Zurek mechanism. Originally introduced in cosmology, it applies to both classical and quantum phase transitions, in a wide variety of physical systems. Here we report on the spontaneous creation of solitons in Bose–Einstein condensates through the Kibble–Zurek mechanism. We measure the power-law dependence of defect number on the quench time, and show that lower atomic densities enhance defect formation. These results provide a promising test bed for the determination of critical exponents in Bose–Einstein condensates.

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Figure 1: Solitons in an elongated BEC.
Figure 2: Soliton number versus quench time.
Figure 3: Quenched evaporation in an inhomogeneous trapped gases.
Figure 4: Soliton number decay.

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Change history

  • 19 September 2013

    In the version of this Article originally published online, in Fig. 2b,c, the values of Nat for each data series were missing from the legend. This error has now been corrected in all versions of the Article.

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Acknowledgements

We are indebted to L. P. Pitaevskii, I. Carusotto and A. Recati for fruitful discussions. This work is supported by Provincia Autonoma di Trento.

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G.L., S.D., S.S. and G.F. built the experimental set-up; G.L., S.D. and G.F. performed data acquisition; G.L. and G.F. analysed the data; all authors contributed to the discussion of the results and G.L., S.D., F.D. and G.F. participated in manuscript preparation.

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Correspondence to Gabriele Ferrari.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Lamporesi, G., Donadello, S., Serafini, S. et al. Spontaneous creation of Kibble–Zurek solitons in a Bose–Einstein condensate. Nature Phys 9, 656–660 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys2734

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