Expansion of harmonically trapped interacting particles and time dependence of the contact

Year: 2016

Authors: Qu CL., Pitaevskii LP., Stringari S.

Autors Affiliation: Univ Trento, CNR BEC Ctr, INO, I-38123 Povo, Italy; Univ Trento, Dipartimento Fis, I-38123 Povo, Italy; RAS, Kapitza Inst Phys Problems, Kosygina 2, Moscow 119334, Russia.

Abstract: We study the expansion of an interacting atomic system at zero temperature, following its release from an isotropic three-dimensional harmonic trap and calculate the time dependence of its density and momentum distribution, with special focus on the behavior of the contact parameter. We consider different quantum systems, including the unitary Fermi gas of infinite scattering length, the weakly interacting Bose gas, and two interacting particles with highly asymmetric mass imbalance. In all cases analytic results can be obtained, which show that the initial value of the contact, fixing the 1/k(4) tail of the momentum distribution, disappears for large expansion times. Our results raise the problem of understanding the recent experiment of R. Chang et al. [Phys.Rev. Lett. 117, 235303 ( 2016)] carried out on a weakly interacting Bose gas of metastable He-4 atoms, where a 1/r(4) tail in the density distribution was observed after a large expansion time, implying the existence of the 1/k(4) tail in the asymptotic momentum distribution.

Journal/Review: PHYSICAL REVIEW A

Volume: 94 (6)      Pages from: 63635-1  to: 63635-8

More Information: We would like to thank David Clement and Alain Aspect for stimulating our interest in the problem of the contact during the expansion and for informing us about their recent experiment on the expansion of metastable 4He atoms. Useful correspondence and discussions with Shina Tan, Stefano Giorgini, and Christophe Salomon are acknowledged. C.Q. thanks Yangqian Yan for helpful discussions. This work was supported by the QUIC grant of the Horizon2020 FET program and by Provincia Autonoma di Trento.
KeyWords: Dynamics; Gas
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.94.063635

Citations: 19
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