Expanding ring-shaped Bose-Einstein condensates as analogs of cosmological models: Analytical characterization of the inflationary dynamics

TL;DR

This paper provides an analytical study of expanding ring-shaped Bose-Einstein condensates, modeling their dynamics to emulate cosmological inflation, and explaining experimental observations related to mode evolution and system controllability.

Contribution

It introduces an analytical framework for the expansion dynamics of ring-shaped Bose-Einstein condensates as analogs of cosmological inflationary models, including excited mode behavior.

Findings

Analytical characterization of radial and azimuthal mode dynamics.

Explanation of observed redshift and Hubble friction effects.

Enhanced control over the condensate system for cosmological emulation.

Abstract

We analytically study the expansion of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a ring-shaped trap with an increasing central radius. The evolution of the ground state is described using a scaling transform. Additionally, the dynamics of excited azimuthal modes over the varying ground state is analyzed through a generalization of the Bogoliubov-de Gennes approach. Our results explain some of the features observed in recent experiments focused on testing the applicability of the system as a parallel of cosmological inflationary models. The radial dynamics, which corresponds to the inflaton field of the cosmological counterpart, is analytically characterized: The expansion is found to induce the oscillatory displacement of the condensate as well as the coupled variation of the radial and vertical widths. Our findings account also for the observed redshift and emergence of the Hubble friction in the evolution of initially-prepared azimuthal modes. Our description, which traces the role of the different components of the setup in the expansion, enhances the controllability, and, therefore, the potential of the system as a ground for emulating the inflationary dynamics of cosmological models.