Dynamical Critical Behavior of an Attractive Bose-Einstein Condensate Phase Transition

TL;DR

This study investigates the universal scaling behavior during the phase transition to a Bose-Einstein condensate, confirming the Kibble-Zurek mechanism's predictions across different interaction regimes.

Contribution

It experimentally demonstrates the universality of the Kibble-Zurek scaling in Bose-Einstein condensate formation with tunable interactions.

Findings

Power-law dependence of soliton number on transition timescale

Scaling behavior is independent of interaction type

Supports the universality predicted by the Kibble-Zurek mechanism

Abstract

When matter undergoes a continuous phase transition on a finite timescale, the Kibble-Zurek mechanism predicts universal scaling behavior with respect to structure formation. The scaling is dependent on the universality class and is irrelevant to the details of the system. Here, we examine this phenomenon by controlling the timescale of the phase transition to a Bose-Einstein condensate using sympathetic cooling of a ultracold Bose thermal could with tunable interactions in an elongated trap. The phase transition results in a diverse number of bright solitons and grey solitons in the condensate that undergo attractive and repulsive interactions, respectively. The power law dependence of the average soliton number on the timescale of the phase transition is measured for each interaction and compared. The results support the Kibble-Zurek mechanism, in that the scaling behavior is determined by universality and does not rely on the interaction properties.