Spontaneous Quantum Turbulence in a Newborn Bose-Einstein Condensate via the Kibble-Zurek Mechanism

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the spontaneous formation of quantum turbulence in a Bose-Einstein condensate during its formation, driven by the Kibble-Zurek mechanism, and confirms universal scaling laws through numerical simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a method to generate and analyze spontaneous quantum turbulence during Bose-Einstein condensation using the Kibble-Zurek mechanism and numerical modeling.

Findings

Quantum vortices proliferate during BEC formation.

Universal Kibble-Zurek and Kolmogorov scaling observed.

Numerical simulations confirm turbulence characteristics.

Abstract

The Kibble-Zurek mechanism (KZM) predicts the spontaneous formation of topological defects in a continuous phase transition driven at a finite rate. We propose the generation of spontaneous quantum turbulence (SQT) via the KZM during Bose-Einstein condensation induced by a thermal quench. Using numerical simulations of the stochastic projected Gross-Pitaevskii equation in two spatial dimensions, we describe the formation of a newborn Bose-Einstein condensate proliferated by quantum vortices. We establish the nonequilibrium universality of SQT through the Kibble-Zurek and Kolmogorov scaling of the incompressible kinetic energy.