Emilia Witkowska

Solitons as the early stage of quasicondensate formation during evaporative cooling.

We calculate the evaporative cooling dynamics of trapped one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates for parameters leading to a range of condensates and quasicondensates in the final equilibrium state, using the classical fields method. We confirm that solitons are created during the evaporation process by the Kibble-Zurek mechanism, but subsequently dissipate during thermalization. However, their signature remains in the phase coherence length, which is approximately conserved during dissipation in this system.

Spontaneous Solitons in the Thermal Equilibrium of a Quasi-1D Bose Gas

We show that solitons occur generically in the thermal equilibrium state of a weakly interacting elongated Bose gas, without the need for external forcing or perturbations. This reveals a major new quality to the experimentally widespread quasicondensate state, usually thought of as primarily phase-fluctuating. Thermal solitons are seen in uniform 1D, trapped 1D, and elongated 3D gases, appearing as shallow solitons at low quasicondensate temperatures, becoming widespread and deep as temperature rises. This behavior can be understood via thermal occupation of the type II excitations in the Lieb-Liniger model of a uniform 1D gas. Furthermore, we find that the quasicondensate phase includes very appreciable density fluctuations while leaving phase fluctuations largely unaltered from the standard picture derived from a density-fluctuation-free treatment.

Double Universality of a Quantum Phase Transition in Spinor Condensates: Modification of the Kibble-Żurek Mechanism by a Conservation Law

We consider a phase transition from an antiferromagnetic to a phase separated ground state in a spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate of ultracold atoms. We demonstrate the occurrence of two scaling laws, for the number of spin domain seeds just after the phase transition, and for the number of spin domains in the final, stable configuration. Only the first scaling can be explained by the standard Kibble-Żurek mechanism. We explain the occurrence of two scaling laws by a model including postselection of spin domains due to the conservation of condensate magnetization.

Limit of spin squeezing in finite-temperature Bose-Einstein condensates.

We show that, at finite temperature, the maximum spin squeezing achievable using interactions in Bose-Einstein condensates has a finite limit when the atom number N→∞ at fixed density and interaction strength. We calculate the limit of the squeezing parameter for a spatially homogeneous system and show that it is bounded from above by the initial noncondensed fraction.

Spin squeezing in dipolar spinor condensates

We study the effect of dipolar interactions on the level of squeezing in spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates by using the single mode approximation. We limit our consideration to the SU(2) Lie subalgebra spanned by spin operators. The biaxial nature of dipolar interactions allows for dynamical generation of spin-squeezed states in the system. We analyze the phase portraits in the reduced mean-field space in order to determine positions of unstable fixed points. We calculate numerically the spin squeezing parameter showing that it is possible to reach the strongest squeezing set by the two-axis countertwisting model. We partially explain scaling with the system size by using the Gaussian approach and the frozen spin approximation.

Dynamics of the modified Kibble-Żurek mechanism in antiferromagnetic spin-1 condensates

We investigate the dynamics and outcome of a quantum phase transition from an antiferromagnetic to phase separated ground state in a spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate of ultracold atoms. We explicitly demonstrate double universality in dynamics within experiments with various quench time. Furthermore, we show that spin domains created in the nonequilibrium transition constitute a set of mutually incoherent quasicondensates. The quasicondensates appear to be positioned in a semi-regular fashion, which is a result of the conservation of local magnetization during the post-selection dynamics.

Spin Squeezing in Finite Temperature Bose-Einstein Condensates : Scaling with the system size

We perform a multimode treatment of spin squeezing induced by interactions in atomic condensates, and we show that, at finite temperature, the maximum spin squeezing has a finite limit when the atom number N →∞ at fixed density and interaction strength. To calculate the limit of the squeezing parameter for a spatially homogeneous system we perform a double expansion with two small parameters: 1/N in the thermodynamic limit and the non-condensed fraction ⟨Nnc⟩/N in the Bogoliubov limit. To test our analytical results beyond the Bogoliubov approximation, and to perform numerical experiments, we use improved classical field simulations with a carefully chosen cut-off, such that the classical field model gives for the ideal Bose gas the correct non-condensed fraction in the Bose-condensed regime.

Classical fields method for a relativistic interacting Bose gas

We formulate a classical fields method for the description of relativistic interacting bosonic particles at nonzero temperatures. The method relies on the assumption that at low temperatures the Bose field can be described by a

Nonadiabatic quantum phase transition in a trapped spinor condensate

c

Thermal fluctuations and quantum phase transition in antiferromagnetic Bose-Einstein condensates

-number function. We discuss a very important role of the cutoff momentum which divides the field into a dominant classical part and a small quantum correction. We illustrate the method by studying the thermodynamics of a relativistic Bose field which is governed by the Klein-Gordon equation with a