Watching a superfluid untwist itself: Recurrence of Rabi oscillations in a Bose-Einstein condensate

TL;DR

This paper reports the experimental observation of the collapse and recurrence of Rabi oscillations in a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate, demonstrating how the condensate's order parameter can untwist itself over time.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental evidence of the superfluid's ability to self-correct twists via Rabi oscillation recurrence in a two-component BEC.

Findings

Observation of collapse and recurrence of Rabi oscillations

Demonstration of the condensate's ability to remove imposed twists

Experimental validation of theoretical predictions about superfluid untwisting

Abstract

The order parameter of a condensate with two internal states can continuously distort in such a way as to remove twists that have been imposed along its length. We observe this effect experimentally in the collapse and recurrence of Rabi oscillations in a magnetically trapped, two-component Bose-Einstein condensate of ^87Rb.