Persistent flow in a Bose-Einstein condensate

ORAL

Abstract

We will describe experiments on the study of quantized flow of Bose-condensed atoms in a multiply-connected trap. This torus-shaped trap is formed by the combination of an elliptically shaped, magnetic trap with a blue detuned laser beam in the middle to exclude atoms from the center of the magnetic trap. The rotation was initiated by transferring the orbital angular momentum from Laguerre-Gaussian photons to the atoms. We have observed that the rotational flow of atoms persists for several seconds, even when the condensate fraction is less than 10\%. We have also observed flow with high angular momentum and its splitting into singly charged vortices when the trap in no longer multiply-connected.

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Authors

  • Pierre Clade

    • National Institute of Standards and Technology

  • Changhyun Ryu

    • National Institute of Standards and Technology

  • Mikkel Andersen

    • National Institute of Standards and Technology

  • Vasant Natarajan

    • National Institute of Standards and Technology

  • Anand Ramanathan

    • National Institute of Standards and Technology

  • Kristian Helmerson

    • National Institute of Standards and Technology

  • William Phillips

    • National Institute of Standards and Technology