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Driving Bose-Einstein-Condensate Vorticity With a Rotating Normal Cloud

Published

Author(s)

P C. Haljan, Ian R. Coddington, P Engels, Eric A. Cornell

Abstract

We have developed an evaporative cooling technique that accelerates the circulation of an ultra-cold 87Rb gas, confined in a static harmonicpotential. As a normal gas is evaporatively spun up and cooled below quantum degeneracy, it is found to nucleate vorticity in a Bose-Einsteincondensate. Measurements of the condensate's aspect ratio and surface-wave excitations are consistent with effective rigid-body rotation.Rotation rates of up to 94% of the centrifugal limit are inferred. A threshold in the normal cloud's rotation is observed for the intrinsic nucleation of the first vortex. The threshold value lies below the prediction for a nucleation mechanism involving the excitation of surface waves of the ground-state condensate.
Citation
Physical Review Letters
Volume
87
Issue
No. 21

Keywords

Bose-Einstein condensation, superfluidity

Citation

Haljan, P. , Coddington, I. , Engels, P. and Cornell, E. (2001), Driving Bose-Einstein-Condensate Vorticity With a Rotating Normal Cloud, Physical Review Letters (Accessed November 4, 2024)

Issues

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Created October 31, 2001, Updated October 12, 2021