Subhasis Sinha

Trapped two-dimensional condensates with synthetic spin-orbit coupling.

We study trapped 2D atomic Bose-Einstein condensates with spin-independent interactions in the presence of an isotropic spin-orbit coupling, showing that a rich physics results from the nontrivial interplay between spin-orbit coupling, confinement and interatomic interactions. For low interactions two types of half-vortex solutions with different winding occur, whereas strong-enough repulsive interactions result in a stripe-phase similar to that predicted for homogeneous condensates. Intermediate interaction regimes are characterized for large enough spin-orbit coupling by an hexagonally-symmetric phase with a triangular lattice of density minima similar to that observed in rapidly rotating condensates.

Dynamic Instability of a Rotating Bose-Einstein Condensate

We consider a Bose-Einstein condensate subject to a rotating harmonic potential, in connection with recent experiments leading to the formation of vortices. We use the classical hydrodynamic approximation to the nonlinear Schrödinger equation to determine almost analytically the evolution of the condensate. We predict that this evolution can exhibit dynamical instabilities, for the stirring procedure previously demonstrated at ENS and for a new stirring procedure that we put forward. These instabilities take place within the range of stirring frequency and amplitude for which vortices are produced experimentally. They provide therefore an initiating mechanism for vortex nucleation.

Cold Dipolar Gases in Quasi-One-Dimensional Geometries

We analyze the physics of cold dipolar gases in quasi-one-dimensional geometries, showing that the confinement-induced scattering resonances produced by the transversal trapping are crucially affected by the dipole-dipole interaction. As a consequence, the dipolar interaction may drastically change the properties of quasi-1D dipolar condensates, even for situations in which the dipolar interaction would be completely overwhelmed by the short-range interactions in a 3D environment.

Friction and Diffusion of Matter-Wave Bright Solitons

We consider the motion of a matter-wave bright soliton under the influence of a cloud of thermal particles. In the ideal one-dimensional system, the scattering process of the quasiparticles with the soliton is reflectionless; however, the quasiparticles acquire a phase shift. In the realistic system of a Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a tight waveguide trap, the transverse degrees of freedom generate an extra nonlinearity in the system which gives rise to finite reflection and leads to dissipative motion of the soliton. We calculate the velocity and temperature-dependent frictional force and diffusion coefficient of a matter-wave bright soliton immersed in a thermal cloud.

Density wave and supersolid phases of correlated bosons in an optical lattice

Motivated by the recent experiment on the Bose-Einstein condensation of 52Cr atoms with long-range dipolar interactions (Werner J. et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 94 (2005) 183201), we consider a system of bosons with repulsive nearest and next-nearest neighbor interactions in an optical lattice. The ground-state phase diagram, calculated using the Gutzwiller ansatz, shows, apart from the superfluid (SF) and the Mott insulator (MI), two modulated phases, i.e., the charge density wave (CDW) and the supersolid (SS). Excitation spectra are also calculated which show a gap in the insulators, gapless, phonon mode in the superfluid and the supersolid, and a mode softening of superfluid excitations in the vicinity of the modulated phases. We discuss the possibility of observing these phases in cold dipolar atoms and propose experiments to detect them.

Solitonic transmission of Bose-Einstein matter waves

We consider a continuous atom laser propagating through a waveguide with a constriction. Two different types of transmitted stationary flow are possible. The first one coincides, at low incident current, with the noninteracting flow. As the incident flux increases, the repulsive interactions decrease the corresponding transmission coefficient. The second type of flow only occurs for sufficiently large incident currents and has a solitonic structure. Remarkably, for any chemical potential there always exists a value of the incident flux at which the solitonic flow is perfectly transmitted.

Quantum Fluctuations in Quasi-One-Dimensional Dipolar Bose-Einstein Condensates

Recent experiments have revealed that beyond-mean-field corrections are much more relevant in weakly interacting dipolar condensates than in their nondipolar counterparts. We show that in quasi-one-dimensional geometries quantum corrections in dipolar and nondipolar condensates are strikingly different due to the peculiar momentum dependence of the dipolar interactions. The energy correction of the condensate presents not only a modified density dependence, but it may even change from attractive to repulsive at a critical density due to the surprising role played by the transversal directions. The anomalous quantum correction translates into a strongly modified physics for quantum-stabilized droplets and dipolar solitons. Moreover, and for similar reasons, quantum corrections of three-body correlations, and hence of three-body losses, are strongly modified by the dipolar interactions. This intriguing physics can be readily probed in current experiments with magnetic atoms.

Dissipative quantum systems and the heat capacity.

We present a detailed study of the quantum dissipative dynamics of a charged particle in a magnetic field. Our focus of attention is the effect of dissipation on the low- and high-temperature behaviors of the specific heat at constant volume. After providing a brief overview of two distinct approaches to the statistical mechanics of dissipative quantum systems, viz., the ensemble approach of Gibbs and the quantum Brownian motion approach due to Einstein, we present exact analyses of the specific heat. While the low-temperature expressions for the specific heat, based on the two approaches, are in conformity with power-law temperature dependence, predicted by the third law of thermodynamics, and the high-temperature expressions are in agreement with the classical equipartition theorem, there are surprising differences between the dependencies of the specific heat on different parameters in the theory, when calculations are done from these two distinct methods. In particular, we find puzzling influences of boundary confinement and the bath-induced spectral cutoff frequency. Further, when it comes to the issue of approach to equilibrium, based on the Einstein method, the way the asymptotic limit (t-->infinity) is taken seems to assume significance.

Two-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensate under extreme rotation

We show that a Bose-condensed gas, under extreme rotation in a 2D anisotropic trap, forms a novel elongated quantum fluid which has a roton-maxon excitation spectrum. For a sufficiently large interaction strength, the roton energy reaches zero and the system undergoes a second order quantum transition to the state with a periodic structure-rows of vortices. The number of rows increases with the interaction, and the vortices eventually form a triangular Abrikosov lattice.

Nonperturbative approach to quantum Brownian motion.

Starting from the Caldeira-Leggett model, we derive the equation describing the quantum Brownian motion, which has been originally proposed by Dekker purely from phenomenological basis containing extra anomalous diffusion terms. This nonperturbative approach yields explicit analytical expressions for the temperature dependence of the diffusion constants. At high temperatures, additional momentum diffusion terms are suppressed and classical Langevin equation can be recovered and at the same time positivity of the density matrix is satisfied. At low temperatures, the diffusion constants have a finite positive value. However, below a certain critical temperature, the master equation does not satisfy the positivity condition as proposed by Dekker.