Contact resistance and phase slips in mesoscopic superfluid atom transport

Published

June 15, 2016

Author(s)

Stephen Eckel, Jeffrey Lee, Fred Jendrejewski, Christopher Lobb, Gretchen K. Campbell, Wendell Hill

Abstract

We have experimentally measured both resistive flow and superflow with bosonic atoms in a mesoscopic transport experiment. Our system, consisting of two Bose-Einstein condensates coupled by a narrow channel, shows resistive flow for currents above a critical value and long-lived oscillations for currents below the same critical value. We capture both behaviors with a simple electronic circuit analogue. We find that the resistance is consistent with phase slips and the associated creation of vortices, as proposed by Feynman [R. P. Feynman, Prog. Low Temp. Phys., (1955)]. We also show that the oscillations are consistent with LC oscillations as estimated by the kinetic inductance and capacitance in our system. Our narrow channel, which allows between 2 and 10 single particle modes to propagate, represents a clear mesoscopic system where particle statistics plays a definitive role in transport.

Citation

Physical Review A

Volume

93

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.93.063619

Local Download

Keywords

atomtronics, Bose-Einstein condensation, mesoscopic physics, resistance superfluids, transport, ultra-cold atoms, vortices, weak connections

Citation

Eckel, S. , Lee, J. , Jendrejewski, F. , Lobb, C. , , G. and Hill, W. (2016), Contact resistance and phase slips in mesoscopic superfluid atom transport, Physical Review A, [online], https://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.93.063619, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=918692 (Accessed October 10, 2025)