Controlled Collapse of a Bose-Einstein Condensate

摘要: The point of instability a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) due to attractive interactions was studied. Stable ${}^{85}\mathrm{Rb}$ BECs were created and then caused collapse by slowly changing the atom-atom interaction from repulsive using Feshbach resonance. At critical value, an abrupt transition observed in which atoms ejected condensate. By measuring onset this as function number strength, we determined stability condition be $\frac{N|a|}{{a}_{\mathrm{ho}}}\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}=\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}0.459\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.012\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.054$, slightly lower than predicted value 0.574.