Metastable Bose-Einstein Condensate in a Linear Potential

TL;DR

This paper reports the creation of a metastable Bose-Einstein condensate in a linear potential, observing unique ring-shaped distributions and discussing potential quantum phenomena involved.

Contribution

It introduces a metastable spin-oriented Bose-Einstein condensate in a linear trap and analyzes its decay and distribution characteristics.

Findings

Condensate lifetime is limited to a few hundred milliseconds.

Observed ring-shaped time-of-flight distributions.

Speculation on quantized vortices or Majorana loss effects.

Abstract

We have created a Bose-Einstein condensate whose spin orientation is metastable. Condensates were transferred into a quadrupole magnetic trap, where Majorana transitions limited the lifetime to a few hundred milliseconds, about 30 times the trapping period. Atoms held in the trap frequently displayed a ring-shaped time-of-flight distribution. We speculate that such a ring could be either a quantized vortex or a feature of the Majorana loss dynamics in the quantum regime.