1. Spontaneous Formation of Star-Shaped Surface Patterns in a Driven Bose-Einstein Condensate
- Author
-
Koushik Mukherjee, Simeon Mistakidis, Kitak Kim, Peter Schmelcher, SeungJung Huh, Jae-yoon Choi, K. Kwon, D. K. Maity, Panayotis G. Kevrekidis, and Sonjoy Majumder
- Subjects
Quantum fluid ,Atomic Physics (physics.atom-ph) ,Quantum turbulence ,FOS: Physical sciences ,General Physics and Astronomy ,Pattern Formation and Solitons (nlin.PS) ,01 natural sciences ,Physics - Atomic Physics ,010305 fluids & plasmas ,law.invention ,Superfluidity ,symbols.namesake ,law ,Dispersion relation ,0103 physical sciences ,010306 general physics ,Feshbach resonance ,Physics ,Quantum Physics ,Nonlinear Sciences - Pattern Formation and Solitons ,Mathieu function ,Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas) ,Quantum electrodynamics ,symbols ,Quasiparticle ,Quantum Physics (quant-ph) ,Condensed Matter - Quantum Gases ,Bose–Einstein condensate - Abstract
We observe experimentally the spontaneous formation of star-shaped surface patterns in driven Bose-Einstein condensates. Two-dimensional star-shaped patterns with $l$-fold symmetry, ranging from quadrupole ($l=2$) to heptagon modes ($l=7$), are parametrically excited by modulating the scattering length near the Feshbach resonance. An effective Mathieu equation and Floquet analysis are utilized, relating the instability conditions to the dispersion of the surface modes in a trapped superfluid. Identifying the resonant frequencies of the patterns, we precisely measure the dispersion relation of the collective excitations. The oscillation amplitude of the surface excitations increases exponentially during the modulation. We find that only the $l=6$ mode is unstable due to its emergent coupling with the dipole motion of the cloud. Our experimental results are in excellent agreement with the mean-field framework. Our work opens a new pathway for generating higher-lying collective excitations with applications, such as the probing of exotic properties of quantum fluids and providing a generation mechanism of quantum turbulence., 5 pages, 4 figures
- Published
- 2021