Out-of-phase oscillation between superfluid and thermal components for a trapped Bose condensate under oscillatory excitation

Abstract

The vortex nucleation and the emergence of quantum turbulence induced by oscillating magnetic fields, introduced by Henn E A L, et al. 2009 (Phys. Rev. A 79, 043619) and Henn E A L, et al. 2009 (Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 045301), left a few open questions concerning the basic mechanisms causing those interesting phenomena. Here, we report the experimental observation of the slosh dynamics of a magnetically trapped $^{87}$Rb Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) under the influence of a time-varying magnetic field. We observed a clear relative displacement in between the condensed and the thermal fraction center-of-mass. We have identified this relative counter move as an out-of-phase oscillation mode, which is able to produce ripples on the condensed/thermal fractions interface. The out-of-phase mode can be included as a possible mechanism involved in the vortex nucleation and further evolution when excited by time dependent magnetic fields.