Quantum Phase Slips: from condensed matter to ultracold quantum gases

Quantum phase slips are the primary excitations in one-dimensional superfluids and superconductors at low temperatures. They have been well characterized in most condensed-matter systems, and signatures of their existence has been recently observed in superfluids based on quantum gases too. In this review we briefly summarize the main results obtained on the investigation of phase slips from superconductors to quantum gases. In particular we focus our attention on recent experimental results of the dissipation in one-dimensional Bose superfluids flowing along a shallow periodic potential, which show signatures of quantum phase slips.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure

Collisions of self-bound quantum droplets

We report on the study of binary collisions between quantum droplets formed by an attractive mixture of ultracold atoms. We distinguish two main outcomes of the collision, i.e. merging and separation, depending on the velocity of the colliding pair. The critical velocity $v_c$ that discriminates between the two cases displays a different dependence on the atom number $N$ for small and large droplets. By comparing our experimental results with numerical simulations, we show that the non-monotonic behavior of $v_c(N)$ is due to the crossover from a compressible to an incompressible regime, where the collisional dynamics is governed by different energy scales, i.e. the droplet binding energy and the surface tension. These results also provide the first evidence of the liquid-like nature of quantum droplets in the large $N$ limit, where their behavior closely resembles that of classical liquid droplets

Feshbach resonances in ultracold K(39)

We discover several magnetic Feshbach resonances in collisions of ultracold K(39) atoms, by studying atom losses and molecule formation. Accurate determination of the magnetic-field resonance locations allows us to optimize a quantum collision model for potassium isotopes. We employ the model to predict the magnetic-field dependence of scattering lengths and of near-threshold molecular levels. Our findings will be useful to plan future experiments on ultracold potassium atoms and molecules.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Transport of a Bose gas in 1D disordered lattices at the fluid-insulator transition

We investigate the momentum-dependent transport of 1D quasi-condensates in quasiperiodic optical lattices. We observe a sharp crossover from a weakly dissipative regime to a strongly unstable one at a disorder-dependent critical momentum. In the limit of non-disordered lattices the observations indicate a contribution of quantum phase slips to the dissipation. We identify a set of critical disorder and interaction strengths for which such critical momentum vanishes, separating a fluid regime from an insulating one. We relate our observation to the predicted zero-temperature superfluid-Bose glass transition

Accurate near-threshold model for ultracold KRb dimers from interisotope Feshbach spectroscopy

We investigate magnetic Feshbach resonances in two different ultracold K-Rb mixtures. Information on the K(39)-Rb(87) isotopic pair is combined with novel and pre-existing observations of resonance patterns for K(40)-Rb(87). Interisotope resonance spectroscopy improves significantly our near-threshold model for scattering and bound-state calculations. Our analysis determines the number of bound states in singlet/triplet potentials and establishes precisely near threshold parameters for all K-Rb pairs of interest for experiments with both atoms and molecules. In addition, the model verifies the validity of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation at the present level of accuracy.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

Velocity-dependent quantum phase slips in 1D atomic superfluids

Quantum phase slips are the primary excitations in one-dimensional superfluids and superconductors at low temperatures but their existence in ultracold quantum gases has not been demonstrated yet. We now study experimentally the nucleation rate of phase slips in one-dimensional superfluids realized with ultracold quantum gases, owing along a periodic potential. We observe a crossover between a regime of temperature-dependent dissipation at small velocity and interaction and a second regime of velocity-dependent dissipation at larger velocity and interaction. This behavior is consistent with the predicted crossover from thermally-assisted quantum phase slips to purely quantum phase slips.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Direct evaporative cooling of 39K atoms to Bose-Einstein condensation

We report the realization of Bose-Einstein condensates of 39K atoms without the aid of an additional atomic coolant. Our route to Bose-Einstein condensation comprises Sub Doppler laser cooling of large atomic clouds with more than 10^10 atoms and evaporative cooling in optical dipole traps where the collisional cross section can be increased using magnetic Feshbach resonances. Large condensates with almost 10^6 atoms can be produced in less than 15 seconds. Our achievements eliminate the need for sympathetic cooling with Rb atoms which was the usual route implemented till date due to the unfavourable collisional property of 39K. Our findings simplify the experimental set-up for producing Bose-Einstein condensates of 39K atoms with tunable interactions, which have a wide variety of promising applications including atom-interferometry to studies on the interplay of disorder and interactions in quantum gases.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure