Controlled Collapse of a Bose-Einstein Condensate

Published

May 1, 2001

Author(s)

J L. Roberts, N R. Claussen, S L. Cornish, E A. Donley, Eric A. Cornell, C E. Wieman

Abstract

The point of instability of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) due to attractive interactions was studied. Stable ⁸⁵Rb BECs were created and then caused to collapse by slowly changing the atom-atom interaction from repulsive to attractive using a Feshbach resonance. At a critical value, an abrupt transition was observed in which atoms were ejected from the condensate. By measuring the onset of this transition as a function of number and attractive interaction strength, we determined the stability condition to be N|a| ÷ aho = 0.459 0.012 0.054, slightly lower than the predicted value of 0.574.

Citation

Physical Review Letters

Volume

86

Issue

No. 19

Pub Type

Journals

Keywords

Bose-Einstein condensation, Feshbach resonances, laser trapping and cooling

Citation

Roberts, J. , Claussen, N. , Cornish, S. , Donley, E. , Cornell, E. and Wieman, C. (2001), Controlled Collapse of a Bose-Einstein Condensate, Physical Review Letters (Accessed October 12, 2025)