We investigate the problem of an ultracold atomic gas in the superfluid phase flowing in the presence of a potential barrier or a periodic potential. We use a hydrodynamic scheme in the local density approximation (LDA) to obtain an analytic expression for the critical current as a function of the barrier height or the lattice intensity, which applies to both Bose and Fermi superfluids. In this scheme, the stationary flow becomes energetically unstable when the local superfluid velocity is equal to the local sound velocity at the point where the external potential is maximum. We compare this prediction with the results of the numerical solutions of the Gross-Pitaevskii and Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations. We discuss the role of long wavelength excitations in determining the critical velocity. Our results allow one to identify the different regimes of superfluid flow, namely, the LDA hydrodynamic regime, the regime of quantum effects beyond LDA for weak barriers and the regime of tunneling between weakly coupled superfluids for strong barriers. We finally discuss the relevance of these results in the context of current experiments with ultracold gases.
Superfluid flow past a potential barrier is a well studied problem in ultracold Bose gases, however, fewer studies have considered the case of flow through a disordered potential. Here we consider the case of a superfluid flowing through a channel containing multiple point-like barriers, randomly placed to form a disordered potential. We begin by identifying the relationship between the relative position of two point-like barriers and the critical velocity of such an arrangement. We then show that there is a mapping between the critical velocity of a system with two obstacles, and a system wit…
We study the pairing dynamics of polar states in a single species p-wave superfluid Fermi gas following a sudden change of the interaction strength. The anisotropy of pair interaction together with the presence of the centrifugal barrier results in profoundly different pairing dynamics compared to the s-wave case. Depending on the direction of quenches, quench to the BCS regime results in a large oscillatory depletion of momentum occupation inside the Fermi sea or a large filling of momentum occupation. We elucidate a crucial role of the resonant state supported by the centrifugal barrier in t…
We discuss an idea to realize a spontaneous current in a superfluid Fermi gas. When a polarized Fermi superfluid ($N_\up > N_\dwn$, where $N_σ$ is the number of atoms in the hyperfine state described by pseudospin $σ=\uparrow, \downarrow$.) is loaded onto a ring-shaped trap with a weak potential barrier, some of excess atoms ($ΔN=N_\uparrow-N_\downarrow$) are localized around the barrier. As shown in our previous paper [T. Kashimura, S. Tsuchiya, and Y. Ohashi, Phys. Rev. A \textbf{82}, 033617 (2010)], this polarized potential barrier works as a $π$-junction in the sense that the superfluid or…
Increasing the stability of a superfluid in a rotating necklace potential
European Laboratory for Nonlinear Spectroscopy (LENS), University of Florence（欧洲非线性光谱学实验室（LENS），佛罗伦萨大学）；Istituto Nazionale di Ottica del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR-INO)（意大利国家光学研究所（CNR-INO））
We have measured the threshold for creating long-lived excitations when a toroidal Bose-Einstein condensate is stirred by a rotating (optical) barrier of variable height. When the barrier height is on the order of or greater than half of the chemical potential, the critical barrier velocity at which we observe a change in the circulation state is much less than the speed for sound to propagate around the ring. In this regime we primarily observe discrete jumps (phase slips) from the non-circulating initial state to a simple, well-defined, persistent current state. For lower barrier heights, th…
We study a system of periodic Bose condensed atoms coupled to cavity photons using the input-output formalism. We show that the cavity will either act as a through pass Lorentzian filter when the superfluid fraction of the condensate is minimum or completely reflect the input field when the superfluid fraction is maximum. We show that by monitoring the ratio between the transmitted field and the reflected field, one can estimate the superfluid fraction.
We investigate the periodic Anderson model with attractive interactions by means of dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT). Using a continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo impurity solver, we study the competition between the superfluid state and the paramagnetic Kondo insulating state, and determine the phase diagram. At the chemical potential-induced phase transition from the Kondo insulating state to the superfluid state, a low-energy peak characteristic of the superfluid state appears inside the hybridization gap. We also address the effect of the confining potential in optical lattice systems by …
The dc Josephson effect provides a powerful phase-sensitive tool for investigating superfluid order parameters. We report on the observation of dc Josephson supercurrents in strongly interacting fermionic superfluids across a tunnelling barrier in the absence of any applied potential difference. For sufficiently strong barriers, we observe a sinusoidal current-phase relation, in agreement with Josephson's seminal prediction. We map out the zero-resistance state and its breakdown as a function of junction parameters, extracting the Josephson critical current behaviour. By comparing our results …
We show that the instability leading to the decay of the one-dimensional superfluid flow through a penetrable barrier are due to the black-hole lasing effect. This dynamical instability is triggered by modes resonating in an effective cavity formed by two horizons enclosing the barrier. The location of the horizons is set by $v(x)=c(x)$, with $v(x),c(x)$ being the local fluid velocity and sound speed, respectively. We compute the critical velocity analytically and show that it is univocally determined by the horizons configuration. In the limit of broad barriers, the continuous spectrum at the…
We study the zero temperature non-equilibrium dynamics of a fermionic superfluid in the BCS limit and in the presence of a drive leading to a time dependent chemical potential $μ(t)$. We choose a periodic driving protocol characterized by a frequency $ω$ and compute the fermion density, the wavefunction overlap, and the residual energy of the system at the end of $N$ periods of the drive. We demonstrate that the BCS self-consistency condition is crucial in shaping the long-time behaviour of the fermions subjected to the drive and provide an analytical understanding of the behaviour of the ferm…
We study analytically the superfluid flow of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a ring geometry in presence of a rotating barrier. We show that a phase transition breaking a parity symmetry among two topological phases occurs at a critical value of the height of the barrier. Furthermore, a discontinuous (accompanied by hysteresis) phase transition is observed in the ordered phase when changing the angular velocity of the barrier. At the critical point where the hysteresis area vanishes, chemical potential of the ground state develops a cusp (a discontinuity in the first derivative). Along this path…
We study the decay of superflow of a one-dimensional (1D) superfluid in the presence of a periodic potential. In 1D, superflow at zero temperature can decay via quantum nucleation of phase slips even when the flow velocity is much smaller than the critical velocity predicted by mean-field theories. Applying the instanton method to the O(2) quantum rotor model, we calculate the nucleation rate of quantum phase slips $Γ$. When the flow momentum $p$ is small, we find that the nucleation rate per unit length increases algebraically with $p$ as $Γ/L \propto p^{2K-2}$, where $L$ is the system size a…
We study the effects of an external periodic potential on the critical velocity of a superfluid Fermi gas in the crossover between the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) phase and Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC). We numerically solve the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations to model a three-dimensional (3D) gas of ultracold atoms in the superfluid phase flowing through a 1D optical lattice. We find that when the recoil energy is comparable to the Fermi energy, the presence of the periodic potential reduces the effect of pair-breaking excitations. This behavior is a consequence of the peculiar band str…
We study anisotropies of helicity modulus, excitation spectrum, sound velocity and angle-resolved luminescence spectrum in a two-dimensional system of interacting excitons in a periodic potential. Analytical expressions for anisotropic corrections to the quantities characterizing superfluidity are obtained. We consider particularly the case of dipolar excitons in quantum wells. For GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures as well as MoS$_2$/hBN/MoS$_2$ and MoSe$_2$/hBN/WSe$_2$ transition metal dichalcogenide bilayers estimates of the magnitude of the predicted effects are given. We also present a method t…
We report on a novel structural Superfluid-Mott Insulator (SF-MI) quantum phase transition for an interacting one-dimensional Bose gas within permeable multi-rod lattices, where the rod lengths are varied from zero to the lattice period length. We use the ab-initio diffusion Monte Carlo method to calculate the static structure factor, the insulation gap, and the Luttinger parameter, which we use to determine if the gas is a superfluid or a Mott insulator. For the Bose gas within a square Kronig-Penney (KP) potential, where barrier and well widths are equal, the SF-MI coexistence curve shows th…
We present results of collisions of $^{90}$Zr+$^{90}$Zr and $^{96}$Zr+$^{96}$Zr obtained within time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) extended to superfluid systems, known as time-dependent superfluid local density approximation (TDSLDA). We discuss qualitatively new features occurring in collisions of two superfluid nuclei at energies in the vicinity of the Coulomb barrier. We show that a \textit{solitonic excitation} -- an abrupt pairing phase distortion -- reported previously [P.~Magierski et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{119}, 042501 (2017)], increases the barrier for capture ge…
Using a numerical implementation of the truncated Wigner approximation, we simulate the experiment reported by Ramanathan et al. in Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 130401 (2011), in which a Bose-Einstein condensate is created in a toroidal trap and set into rotation via a phase imprinting technique. A potential barrier is then placed in the trap to study the decay of the superflow. We find that the current decays via thermally activated phase slips, which can also be visualized as vortices crossing the barrier region in the radial direction. Adopting the notion of critical velocity used in the experimen…
We study effects of a potential barrier on collective modes of superfluid Bose gases in optical lattices. We assume that the barrier is created by local suppression of the hopping amplitude. When the system is in a close vicinity of the Mott transition at commensurate fillings, where an approximate particle-hole symmetry emerges, there exist bound states of Higgs amplitude mode that are localized around the barrier. By applying the Gutzwiller mean-field approximation to the Bose-Hubbard model, we analyze properties of normal modes of the system with a special focus on the Higgs bound states. W…
We study superfluid (SF) states of strongly interacting Bose-Bose mixtures with equal mass and intra-component interaction in optical lattices both in the presence and absence of a barrier potential (BP). We show that the SF order parameters obey the two-component nonlinear Schroedinger equation (NLSE) with not only cubic but also quintic nonlinearity in the vicinity of the first-order transitions to the Mott insulators with even fillings. In the case of no BP, we analyze solitary-wave (SW) solutions of the cubic-quintic NLSE. When the SF state changes from a ground state to a metastable one, …
We show that a time-dependent magnetic field inducing a periodically modulated scattering length may lead to interesting novel scenarios for cold gases in optical lattices, characterized by a nonlinear hopping depending on the number difference at neighboring sites. We discuss the rich physics introduced by this hopping, including pair superfluidity, exactly defect-free Mott-insulator states for finite hopping, and pure holon and doublon superfluids. We also address experimental detection, showing that the introduced nonlinear hopping may lead in harmonically trapped gases to abrupt drops in t…
We study the population dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a double-well potential throughout the crossover from Josephson dynamics to hydrodynamics. At barriers higher than the chemical potential, we observe slow oscillations well described by a Josephson model. In the limit of low barriers, the fundamental frequency agrees with a simple hydrodynamic model, but we also observe a second, higher frequency. A full numerical simulation of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation giving the frequencies and amplitudes of the observed modes between these two limits is compared to the data and is used to…
Galilean invariance leaves its imprint on the energy spectrum and eigenstates of $N$ quantum particles, bosons or fermions, confined in a bounded domain. It endows the spectrum with a recurrent structure which in capillaries or elongated traps of length $L$ and cross-section area $s_\perp$ leads to spectral gaps $n^2h^2s_\perpρ/(2mL)$ at wavenumbers $2nπs_\perpρ$, where $ρ$ is the number density and $m$ is the particle mass. In zero temperature superfluids, in toroidal geometries, it causes the quantization of the flow velocity with the quantum $h/(mL)$ or that of the circulation along the tor…
We consider the setup employed in a recent experiment (Ramanathan et al 2011 Phys. Rev. Lett. 106 130401) devoted to the study of the instability of the superfluid flow of a toroidal Bose-Einstein condensate in presence of a repulsive optical barrier. Using the Gross-Pitaevskii mean-field equation, we observe, consistently with what we found in Piazza et al (2009 Phys. Rev. A 80 021601), that the superflow with one unit of angular momentum becomes unstable at a critical strength of the barrier, and decays through the mechanism of phase slippage performed by pairs of vortex-antivortex lines ann…
We investigate the behaviour of a two-component Fermi superfluid in a double-well potential. We numerically solve the time dependent Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations and characterize the regimes of Josephson oscillations and self-trapping for different potential barriers and initial conditions. In the weak link limit the results agree with a two-mode model where the relative population and the phase difference between the two wells obey coupled nonlinear Josephson equations. A more complex dynamics is predicted for large amplitude oscillations and large tunneling.
We investigate the maximum speed at which a driven superfluid can flow through a narrow constriction with a size on the order of the healing length. Considering dissipation via the thermal nucleation of quantized vortices, we calculate the critical velocity for superfluid $^4$He and ultracold atomtronic circuits, identify fundamental length and velocity scales, and are thus able to present results obtained in widely different temperature and density ranges in a universal framework. For ultra-narrow channels we predict a drastic reduction in the critical velocity as the energy barrier for flow …
We theoretically investigate superfluid properties of a one-dimensional annular superfluid with a boost. We derive the formula of the superfluid fraction in the one-dimensional superfluid, which was originally derived by Leggett in the context of supersolid. We see that the superfluid fraction given by Leggett's formula detects the emergence of solitons in the one-dimensional annular superfluid. The formation of a bright soliton at a critical interaction strength decreases the superfluid fraction. At a critical boost velocity, a node appears in the soliton and the superfluid fraction vanishes.…
Ultracold atomic gases in two dimensions tuned close to a p-wave Feshbach resonance were expected to exhibit topological superfluidity, but these were found to be experimentally unstable. We show that one can induce a topological Floquet superfluid if weakly interacting atoms are brought suddenly close ("quenched") to such a resonance, in the time before the instability kicks in. The resulting superfluid possesses Majorana edge modes, yet differs from a conventional Floquet system as it is not driven externally. Instead, the periodic modulation is self-generated by the dynamics.
We propose a pump probe experiment for detecting the d-wave superfluid and d-density wave phases of ultracold Fermions on an optical lattice. The pump consists of periodic modulations of the optical lattice intensity which creates quasiparticle pairs in these systems. The changes in the momentum distribution under the drive can be used to measure quasiparticle dispersion and gap anisotropy. Further, we show that the pattern of peaks and dips in the spin selective density-density correlation function provides a phase sensitive probe of the symmetry of the order parameter in these systems.
We provide a complete study of the phase diagram characterising the distinct dynamical regimes emerging in a three-dimensional Josephson junction in an ultracold quantum gas. Considering trapped ultracold superfluids separated into two reservoirs by a barrier of variable height and width, we analyse the population imbalance dynamics following a variable initial population mismatch. We demonstrate that as the chemical potential difference is increased, the system transitions from Josephson plasma oscillations to either a dissipative (in the limit of low and narrow barriers) or a self-trapped re…
We present diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC) and path-integral Monte Carlo (PIMC) calculations of a one-dimensional Bose system with realistic interparticle interactions in a periodic external potential. Our main aim is to test the predictions of the Luttinger liquid (LL) theory, in particular with respect to the superfluid-Mott insulator transition at both zero and finite temperatures, in the predicted robust and fragile superfluid regimes. For that purpose, we present our results of the superfluid fraction $ρ_s/ρ_0$, the one-body density matrix, the two-body correlation functions, and the static s…
We consider the problem of particle tunneling through a periodically driven ferromagnetic quantum barrier connected to two leads. The barrier is modeled by an impurity site representing a ferromagnetic layer or quantum dot in a tight-binding Hamiltonian with a local magnetic field and an AC-driven potential, which is solved using the Floquet formalism. The repulsive interactions in the quantum barrier are also taken into account. Our results show that the time-periodic potential causes sharp resonances of perfect transmission and reflection, which can be tuned by the frequency, the driving str…
In this work, we implement a new experimental configuration which exploits the specific properties of the optical bistability exhibited by the polariton system and we demonstrate the generation of a superfluid turbulent flow in the wake of a potential barrier. The propagation and direction of the turbulent flow are sustained by a support beam on distances an order of magnitude longer than previously reported. This novel technique is a powerful tool for the controlled generation and propagation of quantum turbulences and paves the way to the study of the hydrodynamic of quantum turbulence in dr…
We describe gapped single-particle and collective excitations across a superfluid to insulator quantum phase transition of particles (bosons or fermions) in a periodic potential, with an even number of particles per unit cell. We demonstrate that the dynamics is controlled by a quantum impurity problem of a localized particle interacting with the bulk critical modes. Critical exponents are determined by a renormalization group analysis. We discuss applications to spin oscillations of ultracold atoms in optical lattices, and to the electronic phases in the cuprate and related compounds.
We study the instability of a superfluid flow through a constriction in three spatial dimensions. We consider a Bose-Einstein condensate at zero temperature in two different geometries: a straight waveguide and a torus. The constriction consists of a broad, repulsive penetrable barrier. In the hydrodynamic regime, we find that the flow becomes unstable as soon as the velocity at the classical (Thomas-Fermi) surface equals the sound speed inside the constriction. At this critical point, vortex rings enter inside the bulk region of the cloud. The nucleation and dynamics scenario is strongly affe…
We develop a microscopic model to describe the Josephson dynamics between two superfluid reservoirs of ultracold fermionic atoms which accounts for the dependence of the critical current on both the barrier height and the interaction strength along the crossover from BCS to BEC. Building on a previous study [F. Meier & W. Zwerger, Phys. Rev. A, 64 033610 (2001)] of weakly-interacting bosons, we derive analytic results for the Josephson critical current at zero temperature for homogeneous and trapped systems at arbitrary coupling. The critical current exhibits a maximum near the unitarity limit…
We consider a mixture of a Bose-Einstein condensate, with a paired Fermi superfluid, confined in a ring potential. We start with the ground state of the two clouds, identifying the boundary between the regimes of their phase separation and phase coexistence. We then turn to the rotational response of the system. In the phase-separated regime, we have center of mass excitation. When the two species coexist, the spectrum has a rich structure, consisting of continuous and discontinuous phase transitions. Furthermore, for a reasonably large population imbalance it develops a clear quasi-periodic b…
A quantum fluid passing an obstacle behaves differently from a classical one. When the flow is slow enough, the quantum gas enters a superfluid regime and neither whirlpools nor waves form around the obstacle. For higher flow velocities, it has been predicted that the perturbation induced by the defect gives rise to the turbulent emission of quantised vortices and to the nucleation of solitons. Using an interacting Bose gas of exciton-polaritons in a semiconductor microcavity, we report the transition from superfluidity to the hydrodynamic formation of oblique dark solitons and vortex streets …
We study tunneling properties of Higgs modes in superfluid Bose gases in optical lattices in the presence of a potential barrier introduced by local modulation of hopping amplitude. Solving the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau equation, Higgs modes are found to exhibit perfect transmission through a potential barrier if the barrier strength is weak. There exists, on the other hand, localized Higgs bound states in the presence of a strong potential barrier. We find that the perfect transmission disappears at the critical barrier strength above which one of the odd antibound state turns into a tru…
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 th…
A supersolid is a counter-intuitive state of matter that combines the frictionless flow of a superfluid with the crystal-like periodic density modulation of a solid. Since the first prediction in the 1950s, experimental efforts to realize this state have focussed mainly on Helium, where supersolidity remains elusive. Recently, supersolidity has also been studied intensively in ultracold quantum gases, and some of its defining properties have been induced in spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) and BECs coupled to two crossed optical cavities. However, the periodicity of the crys…
The problem of a quasi 1D {\it repulsive} BEC flow past through a nonlinear barrier is investigated. Two types of nonlinear barriers are considered, wide and short range ones. Steady state solutions for the BEC moving through a wide repulsive barrier and critical velocities have been found using hydrodynamical approach to the 1D Gross-Pitaevskii equation. It is shown that in contrast to the linear barrier case, for a wide {\it nonlinear} barrier an interval of velocities $0 < v < v_-$ {\it always} exists, where the flow is superfluid regardless of the barrier potential strength. For the case o…
Interacting systems driven far from equilibrium tend to evolve to steady states exhibiting large-scale structure and order. In two-dimensional turbulent flow the seemingly random swirling motion of a fluid can evolve towards persistent large-scale vortices. Lars Onsager proposed a model based on statistical mechanics of quantized vortices to explain such behavior. Here we report the first experimental confirmation of Onsager's model of turbulence. We drag a grid barrier through an oblate superfluid Bose--Einstein condensate to generate non-equilibrium distributions of vortices. We observe an i…
At finite temperatures below the phase transition point, the Bose-Einstein condensation, the macroscopic occupation of a single quantum state by particles of integer spin, is not complete. In the language of superfluid helium, this means that the superfluid coexists with the normal fluid. Our goal is to describe this coexistence in trapped, dilute atomic gases with repulsive interactions via mean field laws that account for a {\em spatially varying} particle interaction strength. By starting with the $N$-body Hamiltonian, $N\gg 1$, we formally derive a system of coupled, nonlinear evolution eq…
