Modelling of Bose - Einstein condensation in a water tank

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that surface water waves in a controlled environment can emulate Bose-Einstein condensation phenomena, modeled by the Gross-Pitaevskii equation, allowing laboratory study of condensate-like states.

Contribution

It establishes a novel analogy between water wave dynamics and Bose-Einstein condensates, enabling experimental simulation of condensate phenomena using water tanks.

Findings

Surface waves can be governed by an equation equivalent to the Gross-Pitaevskii equation.

External current and bottom profile control the effective potential for wave trapping.

Laboratory setups can simulate condensate states with accessible parameters.

Abstract

It is shown that surface waves propagating against the external current, slowly varying in the horizontal direction in deep water, are governed by the equation which is tantamount to the Gross - Pitaevskii equation modelling the mean-field dynamics of Bose - Einstein condensate. The repulsive or attractive sign of the cubic term in the Gross -Pitaevskii equation is controlled by the choice of the carrier wavelength of the surface waves, while the spatial variation of the current plays the role of the external potential in that equation. The current profile can be easily controlled in the experiments by small variation of the bottom profile, so that the corresponding effective potential in the Gross - Pitaevskii equation can be made in the form of a well or hump. It is shown that the phenomenon of the Bose - Einstein condensation can be effectively emulated in relatively simple laboratory setups for water waves. Generating perturbations with an appropriate carrier wavelength, one can create patterns in the form of trapped waves which correspond to pinned states of Gross - Pitaevskii equation with local potentials. The estimates demonstrate that the parameters of bottom profile, background current, and surface waves are quite accessible to laboratory experiments.