Bose-Einstein condensation of magnons in atomic hydrogen gas

We report on experimental observation of Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC)-like behavior of quantized electron spin waves (magnons) in a dense gas of spin-polarized atomic hydrogen. The magnons are trapped and controlled with inhomogeneous magnetic fields and described by a Schrödinger-like wave equa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2015-03, Vol.114 (12), p.125304-125304
Main Authors: Vainio, O, Ahokas, J, Järvinen, J, Lehtonen, L, Novotny, S, Sheludiakov, S, Suominen, K-A, Vasiliev, S, Zvezdov, D, Khmelenko, V V, Lee, D M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Coherence
Condensing
Electron spin
Gas density
Hydrogen
Magnetic fields
Magnons
Spin waves
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Summary:We report on experimental observation of Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC)-like behavior of quantized electron spin waves (magnons) in a dense gas of spin-polarized atomic hydrogen. The magnons are trapped and controlled with inhomogeneous magnetic fields and described by a Schrödinger-like wave equation, in analogy to the BEC experiments with neutral atoms. We have observed the appearance of a sharp feature in the ESR spectrum displaced from the normal spin wave spectrum. We believe that this observation corresponds to a sudden growth of the ground-state population of the magnons and emergence of their spontaneous coherence for hydrogen gas densities exceeding a critical value, dependent on the trapping potential. We interpret the results as a BEC of nonequilibrium magnons which were formed by applying the rf power.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.125304