Quantum Mass Acquisition in Spinor Bose-Einstein Condensates

TL;DR

This paper proposes that spinor Bose-Einstein condensates can experimentally demonstrate quantum mass acquisition by exhibiting a significantly larger energy gap than typical, due to dynamical instability, with observable effects on excitation velocities.

Contribution

It identifies spinor Bose-Einstein condensates as ideal systems to observe quantum mass acquisition, highlighting a large energy gap caused by dynamical instability.

Findings

Energy gap is 2 orders of magnitude larger than zero-point energy.

Quantum corrections decrease the propagation velocity of massive excitations.

Dynamical instability leads to observable quantum mass acquisition effects.

Abstract

Quantum mass acquisition, in which a massless (quasi)particle becomes massive due to quantum corrections, is predicted to occur in several subfields of physics. However, its experimental observation remains elusive since the emergent energy gap is too small. We show that a spinor Bose-Einstein condensate is an excellent candidate for the observation of such a peculiar phenomenon as the energy gap turns out to be 2 orders of magnitude larger than the zero-point energy. This extraordinarily large energy gap is a consequence of the dynamical instability. The propagation velocity of the resultant massive excitation mode is found to be decreased by the quantum corrections as opposed to phonons.