arXiv subjects

Eddy Timmermans

Publications and source records attributed to Eddy Timmermans.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Counterflow leads to roton spectra in locally interacting superfluids

The dynamics of strongly interacting quantum fluids such as Helium II are fundamentally distinct from those of dilute, contact-interacting atomic Bose-Einstein condensates. Most dramatically, superfluids with finite-range interactions can support excitations with a roton-like dispersion, exhibiting a minimum at finite wavenumber. Here we introduce a mechanism through which roton spectra can emerge in superfluids without any nonlocal interactions, instead resulting from the collective excitations of two counterflowing, zero-range interacting condensates. As our mechanism relies only on the nonlinear dynamics of classical fields, this work opens the door to the realization of roton dynamics in the broad class of physical systems governed by coupled nonlinear-Schrödinger equations.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2022

One second interrogation time in a 200 round-trip waveguide atom interferometer

We report a multiple-loop guided atom interferometer in which the atoms make 200 small-amplitude roundtrips, instead of one large single orbit. The approach is enabled by using ultracold 39K gas and a magnetic Feshbach resonance that can tune the s-wave scattering length across zero to significantly reduce the atom loss from cold collisions. This scheme is resilient against noisy environments, achieving 0.9 s interrogation time without any vibration noise isolation or cancellation. A form of quantum lock-in amplification can be used with the device to measure localized potentials with high sensitivity. We used this technique to measure the dynamic polarizability of the 39K ground state at 1064 nm. The interferometer may also be a useful approach to building a compact multiple-loop Sagnac atom interferometer for rotation sensing.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2020

Stroboscopic aliasing in long-range interacting quantum systems

We unveil a mechanism for generating oscillations with arbitrary multiplets of the period of a given external drive, in long-range interacting quantum many-particle spin systems. These oscillations break discrete time translation symmetry as in time crystals, but they are understood via two intertwined stroboscopic effects similar to the aliasing resulting from video taping a single fast rotating helicopter blade. The first effect is similar to a single blade appearing as multiple blades due to a frame rate that is in resonance with the frequency of the helicopter blades' rotation; the second is akin to the optical appearance of the helicopter blades moving in reverse direction. Analogously to other dynamically stabilized states in interacting quantum many-body systems, this stroboscopic aliasing is robust to detuning and excursions from a chosen set of driving parameters, and it offers a novel route for engineering dynamical $n$-tuplets in long-range quantum simulators, with potential applications to spin squeezing generation and entangled state preparation.

cond-mat.other↗

arXiv2020

Thermalization and its Breakdown for a Large Nonlinear Spin

By developing a semi-classical analysis based on the Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis, we determine the long time behavior of a large spin evolving with a nonlinear Hamiltonian. Despite integrable classical dynamics, we find the Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis for the diagonal matrix elements of observables is satisfied in the majority of eigenstates, and thermalization of long time averaged observables is generic. The exception is a novel mechanism for the breakdown of thermalization based on an unstable fixed point in the classical dynamics. Using the semi-classical analysis we derive how the equilibrium values of observables encode properties of the initial state. This analysis shows an unusual memory effect in which the remembered initial state property is not conserved in the integrable classical dynamics. We conclude with a discussion of relevant experiments and the potential generality of this mechanism for long time memory and the breakdown of thermalization.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2019

Detecting Macroscopic Indefiniteness of Cat States in Bosonic Interferometers

The paradigm of Schrödinger's cat illustrates how quantum states preclude the assignment of definite properties to a macroscopic object (realism). In this work we develop a method to investigate the indefiniteness of cat states using currently available cold atom technology. The method we propose uses the observation of a statistical distribution to demonstrate the macroscopic distinction between dead and alive states, and uses the determination of the interferometric sensitivity (Fisher information) to detect the indefiniteness of the cat's vital status. We show how combining the two observations can provide information about the structure of the quantum state without the need for full quantum state tomography, and propose a measure of the indefiniteness based on this structure. We test this method using a cat state proposed by Gordon and Savage [Phys. Rev. A 59, 4623 (1999)] which is dynamically produced from a coherent state. As a control, we consider a set of states produced using the same dynamical procedure acting on an initial thermal distribution. Numerically simulating our proposed method, we show that as the temperature of this initial state is increased, the produced state undergoes a quantum to classical crossover where the indefiniteness of the cat's vital status is lost, while the macroscopic distinction between dead and alive states of the cat is maintained.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2013

Single impurities in a Bose-Einstein condensate can make two polaron flavors

Polarons, self-localized composite objects formed by the interaction of a single impurity particle with a host medium, are a paradigm of strong interaction many-body physics. We show that dilute gas Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC's) are the first medium known to self-localize the same impurity particles both in a Landau-Pekar polaron state akin to that of self-localized electrons in a dielectric lattice, and in a bubble state akin to that of electron bubbles in helium. We also show that the BEC-impurity system is fully characterized by just two dimensionless coupling constants, and that it can be adiabatically steered from the Landau-Pekar regime to the bubble regime in a smooth crossover trajectory.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2012

Roton immiscibility in a two-component dipolar Bose gas

We characterize the immiscibility-miscibility transition (IMT) of a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) with dipole-dipole interactions. In particular, we consider the quasi-two dimensional geometry, where a strong trapping potential admits only zero-point motion in the trap direction, while the atoms are more free to move in the transverse directions. We employ the Bogoliubov treatment of the two-component system to identify both the well-known long-wavelength IMT in addition to a roton-like IMT, where the transition occurs at finite-wave number and is reminiscent of the roton softening in the single component dipolar BEC. Additionally, we verify the existence of the roton IMT in the fully trapped, finite systems by direct numerical simulation of the two-component coupled non-local Gross-Pitaevskii equations.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2012

Large-N approximation for single- and two-component dilute Bose gases

We discuss the mean-field theories obtained from the leading order in a large-$N$ approximation for one- and two- component dilute Bose gases. For a one-component Bose gas this approximation has the following properties: the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) phase transition is second order but the critical temperature $T_c$ is not shifted from the non-interacting gas value $T_0$. The spectrum of excitations in the BEC phase resembles the Bogoliubov dispersion with the usual coupling constant replaced by the running coupling constant which depends on both temperature and momentum. We then study two-component Bose gases with both inter- and intra- species interactions and focus on the stability of the mixture state above $T_c$. Our mean-field approximation predicts an instability from the mixture state to a phase-separated state when the ratio of the inter-species interaction strength to the intra-species interaction strength (assuming equal strength for both species) exceeds a critical value. At high temperature this is a structural transition and the global translational symmetry is broken. Our work complements previous studies on the instability of the mixture phase in the presence of BEC.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2012

Spin critical opalescence in zero temperature Bose-Einstein Condensates

Cold atom developments suggest the prospect of measuring scaling properties and long-range fluctuations of continuous phase transitions at zero-temperature. We discuss the conditions for characterizing the phase separation of Bose-Einstein condensates of boson atoms in two distinct hyperfine spin states. The mean-field description breaks down as the system approaches the transition from the miscible side. An effective spin description clarifies the ferromagnetic nature of the transition. We show that a difference in the scattering lengths for the bosons in the same spin state leads to an effective internal magnetic field. The conditions at which the internal magnetic field vanishes (i.e., equal values of the like-boson scattering lengths) is a special point. We show that the long range density fluctuations are suppressed near that point while the effective spin exhibits the long-range fluctuations that characterize critical points. The zero-temperature system exhibits critical opalescence with respect to long wavelength waves of impurity atoms that interact with the bosons in a spin-dependent manner.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2012

Composite-Field Goldstone States and Higgs Mechanism in Dilute Bose Gases

We show that a composite-field (diatom) Goldstone state is expected in a dilute Bose gas for temperatures between the Bose gas critical temperature where the atom Bose-Einstein condensate appears and the temperature where superfluidity sets in. The presence of superfluidity is tied to the existence of a U(1) charge-two diatom condensate in the system. By promoting the global U(1) symmetry of the theory to a gauge symmetry, we find that the mass of the gauge particle generated through the Anderson-Higgs mechanism is related to the superfluid density via the Meissner effect and the superfluid density is related to the square of the anomalous density in the Bose system.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2011

Multi-impurity polarons in a dilute Bose-Einstein condensate

We describe the ground state of a large, dilute, neutral atom Bose- Einstein condensate (BEC) doped with N strongly coupled mutually indistinguishable, bosonic neutral atoms (referred to as "impurity") in the polaron regime where the BEC density response to the impurity atoms remains significantly smaller than the average density of the surrounding BEC. We find that N impurity atoms (N is not one) can self-localize at a lower value of the impurity-boson interaction strength than a single impurity atom. When the 'bare' short-range impurity-impurity repulsion does not play a significant role, the self-localization of multiple bosonic impurity atoms into the same single particle orbital (which we call co-self-localization) is the nucleation process of the phase separation transition. When the short-range impurity-impurity repulsion successfully competes with co-self-localization, the system may form a stable liquid of self-localized single impurity polarons.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2011

Novel Polaron State for Single Impurity in a Bosonic Mott Insulator

We show that a single impurity embedded in a cold atom bosonic Mott insulator leads to a novel polaron that exhibits correlated motion with an effective mass and a linear size that nearly diverge at critical value of the on-site impurity-boson interaction strength. Cold atom technology can tune the polaron's properties and break up the composite particle into a deconfined impurity-hole and boson particle state at finite, controllable polaron momentum.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2011

Analytical limits for cold atom Bose gases with tunable interactions

We discuss the equilibrium properties of dilute Bose gases using a non-perturbative formalism based on auxiliary fields related to the normal and anomalous densities. We show analytically that for a dilute Bose gas of weakly-interacting particles at zero temperature, the leading-order auxiliary field (LOAF) approximation leads to well-known analytical results. Close to the critical point the LOAF predictions are the same as those obtained using an effective field theory in the large-N approximation. We also report analytical approximations for the LOAF results in the unitarity limit, which compare favorably with our numerical results. LOAF predicts that the equation of state for the Bose gas in the unitarity limit is E / (p V) = 1, unlike the case of the Fermi gas when E / (p V) = 3/2.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2011

Auxiliary field approach to dilute Bose gases with tunable interactions

We rewrite the Lagrangian for a dilute Bose gas in terms of auxiliary fields related to the normal and anomalous condensate densities. We derive the loop expansion of the effective action in the composite-field propagators. The lowest-order auxiliary field (LOAF) theory is a conserving mean-field approximation consistent with the Goldstone theorem without some of the difficulties plaguing approximations such as the Hartree and Popov approximations. LOAF predicts a second-order phase transition. We give a set of Feynman rules for improving results to any order in the loop expansion in terms of composite-field propagators. We compare results of the LOAF approximation with those derived using the Popov approximation. LOAF allows us to explore the critical regime for all values of the coupling constant and we determine various parameters in the unitarity limit.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2011

Auxiliary field formalism for dilute fermionic atom gases with tunable interactions

We develop the auxiliary field formalism corresponding to a dilute system of spin-1/2 fermions. This theory represents the Fermi counterpart of the BEC theory developed recently by F. Cooper et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 240402 (2010)] to describe a dilute gas of Bose particles. Assuming tunable interactions, this formalism is appropriate for the study of the crossover from the regime of Bardeen-Cooper-Schriffer (BCS) pairing to the regime of Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) in ultracold fermionic atom gases. We show that when applied to the Fermi case at zero temperature, the leading-order auxiliary field (LOAF) approximation gives the same equations as those obtained in the standard BCS variational picture. At finite temperature, LOAF leads to the theory discussed by by Sa de Melo, Randeria, and Engelbrecht [Phys. Rev. Lett. 71, 3202(1993); Phys. Rev. B 55, 15153(1997)]. As such, LOAF provides a unified framework to study the interacting Fermi gas. The mean-field results discussed here can be systematically improved upon by calculating the one-particle irreducible (1-PI) action corrections, order by order.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2011

Pseudospin and spin-spin interactions in ultra-cold alkali atoms

Ultra-cold alkali atoms trapped in two distinct hyperfine states in an external magnetic field can mimic magnetic systems of spin 1/2 particles. We describe the spin-dependent effective interaction as a spin-spin interaction. As a consequence of the zero-range, the interaction of spin 1/2 bosons can be described as an Ising or, alternatively, as an XY-coupling. We calculated the spin-spin interaction parameters as a function of the external magnetic field in the Degenerate Internal State (DIS) approximation. We illustrate the advantage of the spin-spin interaction form by mapping the system of N spin 1/2 bosons confined by a tight trapping potential on that of N spin 1/2 spins coupled via an infinite range interaction.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2010

Non-perturbative predictions for cold atom Bose gases with tunable interactions

We derive a theoretical description for dilute Bose gases as a loop expansion in terms of composite-field propagators by rewriting the Lagrangian in terms of auxiliary fields related to the normal and anomalous densities. We demonstrate that already in leading order this non-perturbative approach describes a large interval of coupling-constant values, satisfies Goldstone's theorem, yields a Bose-Einstein transition that is second-order, and is consistent with the critical temperature predicted in the weak-coupling limit by the next-to-leading order large-N expansion.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2009

Reentrant stability of BEC standing wave patterns

We describe standing wave patterns induced by an attractive finite-ranged external potential inside a large Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC). As the potential depth increases, the time independent Gross-Pitaevskii equation develops pairs of solutions that have nodes in their wavefunction. We elucidate the nature of these states and study their dynamical stability. Although we study the problem in a two-dimensional BEC subject to a cylindrically symmetric square-well potential of a radius that is comparable to the coherence length of the BEC, our analysis reveals general trends, valid in two and three dimensions, independent of the symmetry of the localized potential well, and suggestive of the behavior in general, short- and large-range potentials. One set of nodal BEC wavefunctions resembles the single particle n node bound state wavefunction of the potential well, the other wavefunctions resemble the n-1 node bound-state wavefunction with a kink state pinned by the potential. The second state, though corresponding to the lower free energy value of the pair of n node BEC states, is always unstable, whereas the first can be dynamically stable in intervals of the potential well depth, implying that the standing wave BEC can evolve from a dynamically unstable to stable, and back to unstable status as the potential well is adiabatically deepened, a phenomenon that we refer to as "reentrant dynamical stability".

cond-mat.quant-gas↗