Adolfo del Campo 11/01/2011

Vortex nucleation during Bose-Einstein condensation: the Heterogeneous Kibble-Zurek mechanism

Adolfo del Campo (Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Ulm, Germany)

The Kibble-Zurek mechanism is applied to the spontaneous formation of vortices in a harmonically trapped thermal gas following a temperature quench through the
critical value for Bose-Einstein condensation. While in the homogeneous scenario vortex nucleation is always expected, we show that it can be completely suppressed in the presence of the confinement potential, whenever the speed of the spatial front undergoing condensation is lower than a  threshold velocity. Otherwise, the interplay between the geometry and causality leads to novel scaling laws for the density of vortices.

FACULTAD DE CIENCIAS FÍSICAS UCM
Seminario Dept. Física Teórica I, Planta 3ª
11 Enero 2011, 14:30