Negative mass hydrodynamics in a Spin-Orbit--Coupled Bose-Einstein Condensate

A negative effective mass can be realized in quantum systems by engineering the dispersion relation. A powerful method is provided by spin-orbit coupling, which is currently at the center of intense research efforts. Here we measure an expanding spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensate whose disp...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2017-04
Main Authors: Khamehchi, M A, Hossain, Khalid, Mossman, M E, Zhang, Yongping, Busch, Th, Michael McNeil Forbes, Engels, P
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Condensates
Covariance
Dispersion
Fluid dynamics
Fluid flow
Hydrodynamics
Optical lattices
Periodic structures
Shock waves
Spin-orbit interactions
System effectiveness
Trapping
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Summary:A negative effective mass can be realized in quantum systems by engineering the dispersion relation. A powerful method is provided by spin-orbit coupling, which is currently at the center of intense research efforts. Here we measure an expanding spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensate whose dispersion features a region of negative effective mass. We observe a range of dynamical phenomena, including the breaking of parity and of Galilean covariance, dynamical instabilities, and self-trapping. The experimental findings are reproduced by a single-band Gross-Pitaevskii simulation, demonstrating that the emerging features - shockwaves, soliton trains, self-trapping, etc. - originate from a modified dispersion. Our work also sheds new light on related phenomena in optical lattices, where the underlying periodic structure often complicates their interpretation.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.1612.04055