arXiv subjects

Christopher J. Ho

Publications and source records attributed to Christopher J. Ho.

9 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Observation of Vinen turbulence during far-from-equilibrium Bose-Einstein condensation

Relaxation of far-from-equilibrium quantum fluids, intimately related to the emergence of long-range order, is theoretically associated with the decay of a turbulent isotropic tangle of vortex lines. We observe and study such decaying quantum turbulence in a homogeneous 3D atomic Bose gas. Using matter-wave techniques to magnify the gas density distribution, and then imaging a thin slice of the magnified cloud, we observe imprints of randomly oriented vortex lines and measure the vortex line-length density $\mathcal{L}$. The observed decay of $\mathcal{L}$ agrees with the prediction for Vinen `ultraquantum' turbulence. Although our weakly interacting gases are highly compressible, their large-scale dynamics are consistent with the behavior of an incompressible hydrodynamic fluid, with the decay of $\mathcal{L}$ not depending on the strength of the interatomic interactions and being similar to that in the strongly interacting superfluid helium.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2026

Tuning interactions between static-field-shielded polar molecules with microwaves

The ability to tune interparticle interactions is one of the main advantages of using ultracold quantum gases for quantum simulation of many-body physics. Current experiments with ultracold polar molecules employ shielding with microwave or static electric fields to prevent destructive collisional losses. The interaction potential of microwave-shielded molecules can be tuned by using microwaves of two different polarisations, while for static-field-shielded molecules the tunability of interactions is more limited and depends on the particular species. In this work, we propose a general method to tune the interactions between static-field-shielded molecules by applying a microwave field. We carry out coupled-channel scattering calculations in a field-dressed basis set to determine loss rate coefficients and scattering lengths. We find that both the s-wave scattering length and the dipole length can be widely tuned by changing the parameters of the microwave field, while maintaining strong suppression of lossy collisions.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2025

Fate of an impurity strongly interacting with a thermal Bose gas

We spectroscopically study mobile impurities immersed in a homogeneous bosonic bath (a box-trapped Bose gas), varying the bath temperature and the strength of impurity-bath interactions. We compare our results to those for a quasipure Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), and find that for strong impurity-bath interactions, the spectra narrow with increasing temperature, while the impurity energy shift is suppressed. Near the critical temperature for condensation, many-body effects still play an important role, and only for a nondegenerate bath, the system approaches the classical Boltzmann-gas behavior. The key spectral features are reproduced within the theory of an ideal Bose polaron.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2024

Scaling Laws Governing the Collapse of a Bose-Einstein Condensate

We study the collapse of an attractive Bose-Einstein condensate, where an unstable system evolves towards a singularity, by numerically solving the underlying cubic-quintic nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation. We find good agreement between our simulations and the atom-loss measurements with a $^{39}$K condensate. Our simulations reveal an interplay of weak collapse and the propensity of the system to form a hotspot, and we uncover new scaling laws that govern this behavior. We also identify promising signatures of the theoretically predicted, but so far experimentally elusive, elastic three-body interactions.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2024

Joule expansion of a quantum gas

We revisit the classic Joule-expansion experiments, now with a quantum-degenerate atomic Bose gas. In contrast to the classical-gas experiments, where no temperature change was measured, here we observe and quantitatively explain both cooling and heating effects, which arise, respectively, due to quantum statistics and inter-particle interactions.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2024

A universal speed limit for spreading of coherence

Discoveries of fundamental limits for the rates of physical processes, from the speed of light to the Lieb-Robinson bound for information propagation, often lead to breakthroughs in the our understanding of the underlying physics. Here we observe such a limit for a paradigmatic many-body phenomenon, the spreading of coherence during formation of a weakly interacting Bose-Einstein condensate. We study condensate formation in an isolated homogeneous atomic gas that is initially far from equilibrium, in an incoherent low-energy state, and condenses as it relaxes towards equilibrium. Tuning the inter-atomic interactions that drive condensation, we show that the spreading of coherence through the system is initially slower for weaker interactions, and faster for stronger ones, but always eventually reaches the same limit, where the square of the coherence length grows at a universal rate given by the ratio of Planck's constant and the particle mass, or equivalently by the quantum of velocity circulation associated with a quantum vortex. These observations are robust to changes in the initial state, the gas density, and the system size. Our results provide benchmarks for theories of universality far from equilibrium, are relevant for quantum technologies that rely on large-scale coherence, and invite similar measurements in other systems.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2024

Universal quantum dynamics of Bose polarons

Predicting the emergent properties of impurities immersed in a quantum bath is a fundamental challenge that can defy quasiparticle treatments. Here, we measure the spectral properties and real-time dynamics of mobile impurities injected into a weakly interacting homogeneous Bose-Einstein condensate, using two broad Feshbach resonances to tune both the impurity-bath and intrabath interactions. For attractive impurity-bath interactions, the impurity spectrum features a single branch, which away from the resonance corresponds to a well-defined attractive polaron; near the resonance we observe dramatic broadening of this branch, suggesting a breakdown of the quasiparticle picture. For repulsive impurity-bath interactions, the spectrum features two branches: the attractive branch that is dominated by excitations with energy close to that of the Feshbach dimer, but has a many-body character, and the repulsive polaron branch. Our measurements show that the behavior of impurities in weakly interacting baths is remarkably universal, controlled only by the bath density and a single dimensionless interaction parameter.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2023

Observation of subdiffusive dynamic scaling in a driven and disordered Bose gas

We explore the dynamics of a tuneable box-trapped Bose gas under strong periodic forcing in the presence of weak disorder. In absence of interparticle interactions, the interplay of the drive and disorder results in an isotropic nonthermal momentum distribution that shows subdiffusive dynamic scaling, with sublinear energy growth and the universal scaling function captured well by a compressed exponential. We explain that this subdiffusion in momentum space can naturally be understood as a random walk in energy space. We also experimentally show that for increasing interaction strength, the gas behavior smoothly crosses over to wave turbulence characterized by a power-law momentum distribution, which opens new possibilities for systematic studies of the interplay of disorder and interactions in driven quantum systems.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2023

Energy-space random walk in a driven disordered Bose gas

Motivated by the experimental observation [1] that driving a non-interacting Bose gas in a 3D box with weak disorder leads to power-law energy growth, $E \propto t^η$ with $η=0.46(2)$, and compressed-exponential momentum distributions that show dynamic scaling, we perform systematic numerical and analytical studies of this system. Schrödinger-equation simulations reveal a crossover from $η\approx 0.5$ to $η\approx 0.4$ with increasing disorder strength, hinting at the existence of two different dynamical regimes. We present a semi-classical model that captures the simulation results and allows an understanding of the dynamics in terms of an energy-space random walk, from which a crossover from $E \propto t^{1/2}$ to $E \propto t^{2/5}$ scaling is analytically obtained. The two limits correspond to the random walk being limited by the rate of the elastic disorder-induced scattering or the rate at which the drive can change the system's energy. Our results provide the theoretical foundation for further experiments.

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