Propagation of sound in a Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical lattice

Year: 2004

Authors: Menotti C., Krdmer M., Smerzi A., Pitaevskii L., Stringari S.

Autors Affiliation: Univ Trent, Ist Nazl Fis Mat, BEC CRS, I-38050 Povo, Italy; Univ Trent, Dipartimento Fis, I-38050 Povo, Italy; Los Alamos Natl Lab, Div Theoret, Los Alamos, NM 87545 USA; Kapitza Inst Phys Problems, Moscow 117334, Russia.

Abstract: We study the propagation of sound waves in a Bose-Einstein condensate trapped in a one-dimensional optical lattice. We find that the velocity of the propagation of sound wave packets decreases with increasing optical lattice depth, as predicted by the Bogoliubov theory. The strong interplay between nonlinearities and the periodicity of the external potential generates phenomena that are not present in the uniform case. Shock waves, for instance, can propagate slower than sound waves, due to the negative curvature of the dispersion relation. Moreover, nonlinear corrections to the Bogoliubov theory appear to be important even with very small density perturbations, inducing a saturation of the amplitude of the sound signal.

Journal/Review: PHYSICAL REVIEW A

Volume: 70 (2)      Pages from: 23609-1  to: 23609-8

KeyWords: Superfluid; Dynamics; Atoms
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.70.023609

Citations: 26
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