Quantum dynamics of impurities in a 1D Bose gas

TL;DR

This paper investigates how impurities interact with a 1D Bose gas during expansion, revealing interaction-dependent amplitude changes in impurity oscillations and comparing results with polaronic models.

Contribution

It introduces a method to create localized impurities in a 1D Bose gas and analyzes their dynamics, providing new insights into impurity-boson interactions and polaronic effects.

Findings

Amplitude reduction of impurity oscillations depends on interaction strength

No measurable frequency shift observed in impurity oscillations

Comparison with Feynman variational polaron model discussed

Abstract

Using a species-selective dipole potential, we create initially localized impurities and investigate their interactions with a majority species of bosonic atoms in a one-dimensional configuration during expansion. We find an interaction-dependent amplitude reduction of the oscillation of the impurities' size with no measurable frequency shift, and study it as a function of the interaction strength. We discuss possible theoretical interpretations of the data. We compare, in particular, with a polaronic mass shift model derived following Feynman variational approach.