Breakdown of integrability in a quasi-one-dimensional ultracold bosonic gas

TL;DR

This paper shows that virtual excitations in a quasi-1D ultracold bosonic gas lead to effective three-body collisions, breaking integrability and causing thermalization, aligning with recent experimental observations.

Contribution

It reveals how virtual excitations induce effective three-body interactions that break integrability in quasi-1D ultracold gases, explaining thermalization phenomena.

Findings

Effective three-body collisions arise from virtual excitations of higher radial modes.

Thermalization rates match recent experimental data.

Integrability is broken in quasi-1D Bose gases due to these interactions.

Abstract

We demonstrate that virtual excitations of higher radial modes in an atomic Bose gas in a tightly confining waveguide result in effective three-body collisions that violate integrability in this quasi-one-dimensional quantum system and give rise to thermalization. The estimated thermalization rates are consistent with recent experimental results in quasi-1D dynamics of ultracold atoms.