Generation and decay of persistent current in a toroidal Bose-Einstein condensate

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent theoretical work on creating and understanding persistent currents in ring-shaped Bose-Einstein condensates, highlighting their significance for superfluidity studies and potential technological applications.

Contribution

It introduces new theoretical insights into the generation and decay of persistent currents and explores hysteresis phenomena in atomtronic circuits.

Findings

Long-lived persistent currents observed in experiments

Hysteresis effects in atomtronic circuits analyzed

Theoretical models explain current generation and decay

Abstract

Persistent current, or "flow without friction", as well as quantum vortices are the hallmarks of superfluidity. Recently a very long-lived persistent flow of atoms has been experimentally observed in Bose-Einstein condensates trapped in a ring-shaped potential. This enables fundamental studies of superfluidity and may lead to applications in high-precision metrology and atomtronics. We overview our recent theoretical studies of the generation of the persistent current in a stirred toroidal atomic Bose-Einstein condensate, and discuss our new investigation of the hysteresis in the atomtronic circuit.