Abstract
When atoms in a gas are cooled to extremely low temperatures, they will—under the appropriate conditions—condense into a single quantum-mechanical state known as a Bose–Einstein condensate. In such systems, quantum-mechanical behaviour is evident on a macroscopic scale. Here we explore the dynamics of how a Bose–Einstein condensate collapses and subsequently explodes when the balance of forces governing its size and shape is suddenly altered. A condensate's equilibrium size and shape is strongly affected by the interatomic interactions. Our ability to induce a collapse by switching the interactions from repulsive to attractive by tuning an externally applied magnetic field yields detailed information on the violent collapse process. We observe anisotropic atom bursts that explode from the condensate, atoms leaving the condensate in undetected forms, spikes appearing in the condensate wavefunction and oscillating remnant condensates that survive the collapse. All these processes have curious dependences on time, on the strength of the interaction and on the number of condensate atoms. Although the system would seem to be simple and well characterized, our measurements reveal many phenomena that challenge theoretical models.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Dalfovo, F., Giorgini, S., Pitaevskii, L. P. & Stringari, S. Theory of Bose-Einstein condensation in trapped gases. Rev. Mod. Phys. 71, 463–512 (1999).
Ruprecht, P. A., Holland, M. J., Burnett, K. & Edwards, M. Time-dependent solution of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation for Bose-condensed trapped neutral atoms. Phys. Rev. A 51, 4704–4711 (1995).
Gammal, A., Frederico, T. & Tomio, L. Critical number of atoms for attractive Bose-Einstein condensates with cylindrically symmetrical traps. Phys. Rev. A (submitted).
Tiesinga, E., Morerdijk, A. J., Verhaar, B. J. & Stoof, H. T. C. Conditions for Bose-Einstein condensation in magnetically trapped atomic cesium. Phys. Rev. A 46, R1167–R1170 (1992).
Tiesinga, E., Verhaar, B. J. & Stoof, H. T. C. Threshold and resonance phenomena in ultracold ground-state collisions. Phys. Rev. A 47, 4114–4122 (1993).
Courteille, Ph., Freeland, R. S., Heinzen, D. J., van Abeelen, F. A. & Verhaar, B. J. Observation of a Feshbach resonance in cold atom scattering. Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 69–72 (1998).
Roberts, J. L. et al. Resonant magnetic field control of elastic scattering in cold 85Rb. Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 5109–5112 (1998).
Vuletić, V., Kerman, A. J., Chin, C. & Chu, S. Observation of low-field Feshbach resonances in collisions of cesium atoms. Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 1406–1409 (1999).
Inouye, S. et al. Observation of Feshbach resonances in a Bose-Einstein condensate. Nature 392, 151–154 (1998).
Cornish, S. L., Claussen, N. R., Roberts, J. L., Cornell, E. A. & Wieman, C. E. Stable 85Rb Bose-Einstein condensates with widely tunable interactions. Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 1795–1798 (2000).
Roberts, J. L. et al. Controlled collapse of a Bose-Einstein condensate. Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 4211–4214 (2001).
Kagan, Y., Surkov, E. L. & Shlyapnikov, G. V. Evolution and global collapse of trapped Bose condensates under variations of the scattering length. Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 2604–2607 (1997).
Kagan, Y., Muryshev, A. E. & Shlyapnikov, G. V. Collapse and Bose-Einstein condensation in a trapped Bose gas with negative scattering length. Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 933–937 (1998).
Ueda, M. & Huang, K. Fate of a Bose-Einstein condensate with an attractive interaction. Phys. Rev. A 60, 3317–3320 (1999).
Saito, H. & Ueda, M. Power laws and collapsing dynamics of a trapped Bose–Einstein condensate with attractive interactions. Phys. Rev. A 63, 043601-8 (2001).
Saito, H. & Ueda, M. Intermittent implosion and pattern formation of trapped Bose-Einstein condensates with an attractive interaction. Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 1406–1409 (2001).
Duine, R. A. & Stoof, H. T. C. Explosion of a collapsing Bose-Einstein condensate. Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 2204–2207 (2001).
Bradley, C. C., Sackett, C. A. & Hulet, R. G. Bose-Einstein condensation of lithium: Observation of limited condensate number. Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 985–989 (1997).
Sackett, C. A., Gerton, J. M., Welling, M. & Hulet, R. G. Measurements of collective collapse in a Bose-Einstein condensate with attractive interactions. Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 876–879 (1999).
Gerton, J. M., Strekalov, D., Prodan, I. & Hulet, R. G. Direct observation of growth and collapse of a Bose-Einstein condensate with attractive interactions. Nature 408, 692–695 (2000).
Myatt, C. J., Newbury, N. R., Ghrist, R. W., Loutzenhiser, S. & Wieman, C. E. Multiply loaded magneto-optical trap. Opt. Lett. 21, 290–292 (1996).
Roberts, J. L., Claussen, N. R., Cornish, S. L. & Wieman, C. E. Magnetic field dependence of ultracold inelastic collisions near a Feshbach resonance. Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 728–731 (2000).
Pérez-Garcia, V. M., Michinel, H., Cirac, J. L., Lewenstein, M. & Zoller, P. Dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates: Variational solutions of the Gross-Pitaevskii equations. Phys. Rev. A 56, 1424–1432 (1997).
Pattanayak, A. K., Gammal, A., Sackett, C. A. & Hulet, R. G. Stabilizing an attractive Bose-Einstein condensate by driving a surface collective mode. Phys. Rev. A 63, 033604-4 (2001).
Stenger, J. et al. Strongly enhanced inelastic collisions in a Bose-Einstein condensate near Feshbach resonances. Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 2422–2425 (1999).
Acknowledgements
We thank S. Thompson for laboratory assistance, and S. Dürr, G. Shlyapnikov, H. Stoof, M. Holland, M. Ueda and R. Duine for discussions. This work was supported by the ONR, NSF, ARO-MURI and NIST. S.L.C. acknowledges the support of a Lindemann Fellowship.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Donley, E., Claussen, N., Cornish, S. et al. Dynamics of collapsing and exploding Bose–Einstein condensates. Nature 412, 295–299 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35085500
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/35085500
This article is cited by
-
Quantized fractional Thouless pumping of solitons
Nature Physics (2023)
-
Nonlinear Schrödinger systems with trapping potentials for mixed attractive and repulsive interactions
Calculus of Variations and Partial Differential Equations (2023)
-
Ultra–Cold Many–Body Systems and Phenomenology of Gravity Theories with Compact Dimensions
Foundations of Physics (2023)
-
Atom-optically synthetic gauge fields for a noninteracting Bose gas
Light: Science & Applications (2022)
-
Super Dense Coding with Dark-Soliton Qubits
International Journal of Theoretical Physics (2022)
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.
