Confinement-induced collapse of a dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate

TL;DR

This paper investigates how confinement in a one-dimensional optical lattice induces collapse in a dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate, revealing new instability mechanisms related to lattice depth and dynamics.

Contribution

It demonstrates the confinement-induced collapse and instability phenomena in dipolar BECs within optical lattices, highlighting the role of lattice parameters and interaction anisotropy.

Findings

Collapse can be triggered by lowering lattice depth below a critical value.

Stable condensates can become unstable during time-of-flight after release.

Anisotropic dipolar interactions influence stability during expansion.

Abstract

We report on the observation of the confinement-induced collapse dynamics of a dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate (dBEC) in a one-dimensional optical lattice. We show that for a fixed interaction strength the collapse can be initiated in-trap by lowering the lattice depth below a critical value. Moreover, a stable dBEC in the lattice may become unstable during the time-of-flight dynamics upon release, due to the combined effect of the anisotropy of the dipolar interactions and inter-site coherence in the lattice.