Watching a Superfluid Untwist Itself: Recurrence of Rabi Oscillations in a Bose-Einstein Condensate

M. R. Matthews; B. P. Anderson; P. C. Haljan; D. S. Hall; M. J. Holland; J. E. Williams; C. E. Wieman; E. A. Cornell

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.3358

Watching a Superfluid Untwist Itself: Recurrence of Rabi Oscillations in a Bose-Einstein Condensate

M. R. Matthews, B. P. Anderson, P. C. Haljan, D. S. Hall, M. J. Holland, J. E. Williams, C. E. Wieman, and E. A. Cornell

Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 3358 – Published 25 October 1999

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 $^{87} Rb$ .