Calorimetry of a harmonically trapped Bose gas

TL;DR

This paper experimentally investigates the energy-temperature relationship of a harmonically trapped Bose-Einstein condensate, comparing two heat transfer methods and analyzing interaction effects against theoretical models.

Contribution

It introduces two novel experimental methods for transferring heat to a trapped Bose gas and compares the thermodynamic behavior with theoretical predictions.

Findings

Energy-temperature relationship characterized experimentally.

Interaction effects on thermodynamics observed.

Comparison with finite temperature theories conducted.

Abstract

We experimentally study the energy-temperature relationship of a harmonically trapped Bose-Einstein condensate by transferring a known quantity of energy to the condensate and measuring the resulting temperature change. We consider two methods of heat transfer, the first using a free expansion under gravity and the second using an optical standing wave to diffract the atoms in the potential. We investigate the effect of interactions on the thermodynamics and compare our results to various finite temperature theories.