We demonstrate robust, stable, mobile excited states of quasi-two-dimensional (quasi-2D) dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) solitons for repulsive contact interaction with a harmonic trap along the $x$ direction perpendicular to the polarization direction $z$. Such a soliton can freely move in the y-z plane. A rich variety of such excitations is considered: one quanta of excitation for movement along (i) y axis or (ii) z axis or (ii) both. A proposal for creating these excited solitonic states in a laboratory by phase imprinting is also discussed. We also consider excited states of quasi-2D dipolar BEC soliton where the sign of the dipolar interaction is reversed by a rotating orienting field. In this sign-changed case the soliton moves freely in the x-y plane under the action of a harmonic trap in the $z$ direction. At medium velocity the head-on collision of two such solitons is found to be quasi elastic with practically no deformation. The findings are illustrated using numerical simulation in three and two spatial dimensions employing realistic interaction parameters for a dipolar $^{164}$Dy BEC.
We look into dark solitons in a quasi-1D dipolar Bose gas and in a quantum droplet. We derive the analytical solitonic solution of a Gross-Pitaevskii-like equation accounting for beyond mean-field effects. The results show there is a certain critical value of the dipolar interactions, for which the width of a motionless soliton diverges. Moreover, there is a peculiar solution of the motionless soliton with a non-zero density minimum. We also present the energy spectrum of these solitons with an additional excitation subbranch appearing. Finally, we perform a series of numerical experiments rev…
By solving the three-dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii equation we generate two-dimensional axially-symmetric and anisotropic dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate bright solitons, for repulsive atomic interaction, stabilized by only a weak one-dimensional optical lattice (OL) aligned along and perpendicular, respectively, to the dipole polarization direction. In the former case vortex solitons can also be created. We show that it is possible to make a stable array of small interacting axially-symmetric dipolar solitons put on alternate OL sites. Further, we demonstrate the elastic nature of the collisi…
We study the stability, form and interaction of single and multiple dark solitons in quasi-one-dimensional dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates. The solitons are found numerically as stationary solutions in the moving frame of a non-local Gross Pitaevskii equation, and characterized as a function of the key experimental parameters, namely the ratio of the dipolar atomic interactions to the van der Waals interactions, the polarization angle and the condensate width. The solutions and their integrals of motion are strongly affected by the phonon and roton instabilities of the system. Dipolar matter…
We numerically generate, and then study the basic properties of dark soliton-like excitations in a dipolar gas confined in a quasi one dimensional trap. These excitations, although very similar to dark solitons in a gas with contact interaction, interact with each other and can form bound states. During collisions these dipolar solitons emit phonons, loosing energy, but accelerating. Even after thousands of subsequent collisions they survive as gray solitons and finally reach dynamical equilibrium with background quasiparticles. Finally, in the frame of classical field approximation, we verifi…
We demonstrate stable, robust, bright dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) solitons, moving in a direction perpendicular to the polarization direction, formed due to dipolar interaction for repulsive contact interaction. At medium velocity the head on collision of two such solitons is found to be quasi elastic with practically no deformation. Upon small perturbation the solitons are found to exhibit sustained breathing oscillation. The findings are illustrated by numerical simulation using the 3D mean-field Gross-Pitaevskii equation and a reduced 2D model in three and two spatial dimensions …
Analytic expressions have been derived for the interaction potential between dipolar bright solitons and the binding energy of a two-soliton molecule. The properties of these localized structures are explored with a focus on their behavior in the weakly bound regime, with a small binding energy. Using the variational approach a coupled system of ordinary differential equations for the parameters of a soliton molecule is obtained for the description of their evolution. Predictions of the model are compared with numerical simulations of the governing nonlocal Gross-Pitaevskii equation and good q…
Solitons in the extended hydrodynamic model of the dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate with quantum fluctuations are considered. This model includes the continuity equation for the scalar field of concentration, the Euler equation for the vector field of velocity, the pressure evolution equation for the second rank tensor of pressure, and the evolution equation for the third rank tensor. Large amplitude soliton solution caused by the dipolar part of quantum fluctuations is found. It appears as the bright soliton. Hence, it is the area of compression of the number of particles. Moreover, it exists…
We present a comprehensive analysis of the form and interaction of dipolar bright solitons across the full parameter space afforded by dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates, revealing the rich behaviour introduced by the non-local nonlinearity. Working within an effective one-dimensional description, we map out the existence of the soliton solutions and show three collisional regimes: free collisions, bound state formation and soliton fusion. Finally, we examine the solitons in their full three-dimensional form through a variational approach; along with regimes of instability to collapse and runaw…
We discuss scattering between a bright soliton and a soliton dimer in coupled quasi-one-dimensional dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates. The dimer is formed by each soliton from both tubes due to the attractive inter-layer dipole-dipole interaction. The dipoles within each tube repel each other, and a stable, bright soliton is stabilized via attractive contact interactions. In general, the scattering is inelastic, transferring the kinetic energy into internal modes of both soliton dimer and single soliton. Our studies reveal rich scattering scenarios, including dimer-soliton repulsion at small i…
Thanks to their immense purity and controllability, dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates are an exemplar for studying fundamental non-local nonlinear physics. Here we show that a family of fundamental nonlinear waves - the dark solitons - are supported in trapped quasi-one-dimensional dipolar condensates and within reach of current experiments. Remarkably, the oscillation frequency of the soliton is strongly dependent on the atomic interactions, in stark contrast to the non-dipolar case. The failure of a particle analogy, so successful for dark solitons in general, to account for this behaviour i…
We experimentally show that dipolar interaction can stabilize otherwise unstable many-body systems like an attractive Bose gas. In a one dimensional lattice the repulsive dipolar on-site interaction balances negative scattering lengths up to -17 Bohr radii and stabilizes the chromium Bose-Einstein condensate. For reduced lattice depths, the dipolar stabilization turns into destabilization. We probe the full cross-over between the two regimes and our results are in excellent agreement with theoretical calculations, which reveal significant dipolar inter-site interactions.
We investigate effects of three-body contact interactions on a trapped dipolar Bose gas at finite temperature using the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov approximation. We analyze numerically the behavior of the transition temperature and the condensed fraction. Effects of the three-body interactions, anomalous pair correlations and temperature on the collective modes are discussed.
We study a two-dimensional spin-orbit-coupled dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate with repulsive contact interactions by both the variational method and the imaginary time evolution of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. The dipoles are completely polarized along one direction in the 2D plane so as to provide an effective attractive dipole-dipole interaction. We find two types of solitons as the ground states arising from such attractive interactions: a plane wave soliton with a spatially varying phase and a stripe soliton with a spatially oscillating density for each component. Both types of solitons…
We study properties of a trapped dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in a circular ring or a spherical shell using the mean-field Gross-Pitaevskii equation. In the case of the ring-shaped trap we consider different orientations of the ring with respect to the polarization direction of the dipoles. In the presence of long-range anisotropic dipolar and short-range contact interactions, the anisotropic density distribution of the dipolar BEC in both traps is discussed in detail. The stability condition of the dipolar BEC in both traps is illustrated in phase plot of dipolar and contact interac…
Using a three-dimensional mean-field model we study one-dimensional dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) solitons on a weak two-dimensional (2D) square and triangular optical lattice (OL) potentials placed perpendicular to the polarization direction. The stabilization against collapse and expansion of these solitons for a fixed dipolar interaction and a fixed number of atoms is possible for short-range atomic interaction lying between two critical limits. The solitons collapse below the lower limit and escapes to infinity above the upper limit. One can also stabilize identical tiny BEC solit…
We develop a theory of damping of low energy, collective excitations in a quasi-2D, homogenous, dipolar Bose gas at zero temperature, via processes whereby an excitation decays into two excitations with lower energy. We find that owing to the nature of the low energy spectrum of a quasi-2D dipolar gas, such processes cannot occur unless the momentum of the incoming quasi-particle exceeds a critical value k_{crit}. We find that as the dipolar interaction strength is increased, this critical value shifts to larger momenta. Our predictions can be directly verified in current experiments on dipola…
We systematically investigate the properties of three-dimensional dipolar binary Bose mixture at low temperatures. A set of coupled self-consistent equations of motion are derived for the two condensates. In the homogeneous case, useful analytical formulas for the condensate depletion, the anomalous density, the ground-state energy, and the equation of state are obtained. The theory is extended to the inhomogeneous case and the importance of the inhomogeneity is highlighted. Our results open up a new avenue for studying dipolar mixture droplets. Impacts of the dipole-dipole interaction on the …
We directly compare the mean-field and the many-body approach in a one-dimensional Bose system in a harmonic trap. Both contact and dipolar interactions are considered. We propose a multi-atom version of the phase imprinting method to generate dark solitons in the system. We begin with a general analysis of system dynamics and observe the emergence of a dark soliton and a shock wave. Center of mass and soliton motion become decoupled because the shock wave oscillates with the trap frequency and soliton does not. A detailed investigation of frequencies reveals significant differences between re…
The dynamics of a two-soliton molecule bouncing on the reflecting atomic mirror under the effect of gravity has been studied by analytical and numerical methods. The analytical description is based on the variational approximation. In numerical simulations, we observe the resonance oscillations of the two-soliton's center-of-mass position and width, induced by modulated atomic mirror. Theoretical predictions are verified by numerical simulations of the nonlocal Gross-Pitaevskii equation (GPE) and qualitative agreement between them is found. Hamiltonian dynamic system for a dipolar Bose-Einstei…
Trapped degenerate dipolar Bose and Fermi gases of cylindrical symmetry with the polarization vector along the symmetry axis are only stable for the strength of dipolar interaction below a critical value. In the case of bosons, the stability of such a dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) is investigated for different strengths of contact and dipolar interactions using variational approximation and numerical solution of a mean-field model. In the disk shape, with the polarization vector perpendicular to the plane of the disk, the atoms experience an overall dipolar repulsion and this fact sho…
A homogeneous polarized dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate is considered in the presence of weak quenched disorder within mean-field theory at zero temperature. By first solving perturbatively the underlying Gross-Pitaevskii equation and then performing disorder ensemble averages for physical observables, it is shown that the anisotropy of the two-particle interaction is passed on to both the superfluid density and the sound velocity.
The long-range and anisotropic nature of the dipolar interaction provides the so-called supersolid phases in Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) in an optical lattice. However, in a certain area of dipole interaction parameters, BECs can form into a droplet. In this paper, in order to qualitatively understand the droplet formations, we propose a toy model that allows us to estimate the size and shape of droplets in dipolar Bose-Hubbard system in the optical lattice. We compare results of the toy model with numerical solutions of the mean-field calculation.
Collapse in dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates may be arrested by quantum fluctuations. Due to the anisotropy of the dipole-dipole interactions, the dipole-driven collapse induced by soft excitations is compensated by the repulsive Lee-Huang-Yang contribution resulting from quantum fluctuations of hard excitations, in a similar mechanism as that recently proposed for Bose-Bose mixtures. The arrested collapse results in self-bound filament-like droplets, providing an explanation to recent dysprosium experiments. Arrested instability and droplet formation are novel general features directly linke…
The object of study of this thesis are dipolar systems in the quantum degenerate regime. In general, dealing with many-body systems and evaluating their properties requires to deal with the Schrödinger equation. In the present study we employ different Monte Carlo methods, that are stochastic techniques that allow to find numerical solutions to it.
We study the influence of dipole-dipole interaction on the formation of vortices in a rotating dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of $^{52}$Cr and $^{164}$Dy atoms in quasi two-dimensional geometry. By numerically solving the corresponding time-dependent mean-field Gross-Pitaevskii equation, we show that the dipolar interaction enhances the number of vortices while a repulsive contact interaction increases the stability of the vortices. Further, an ordered vortex lattice of relatively large number of vortices is found in a strongly dipolar BEC.
We present a theory for the Landau damping of low energy quasi-particles in a collisionless, quasi-2D dipolar Bose gas and produce expressions for the damping rate in uniform and non-uniform systems. Using simple energy-momentum conservation arguments, we show that in the homogeneous system, the nature of the low energy dispersion in a dipolar Bose gas severely inhibits Landau damping of long wave-length excitations. For a gas with contact and dipolar interactions, the damping rate for phonons tends to decrease with increasing dipolar interactions; for strong dipole-dipole interactions, phonon…
We consider a rapidly rotating two-component Bose-Einstein condensate with short-range s-wave interactions as well as dipolar coupling. We calculate the phase diagram of vortex lattice structures as a function of the intercomponent s-wave interaction and the strength of the dipolar interaction. We find that the long-range interactions cause new vortex lattice structures to be stable and lead to a richer phase diagram. Our results reduce to the previously found lattice structures for short-range interactions and single-component dipolar gases in the corresponding limits.
We investigate the superfluidity and the coherence in dipolar binary Bose mixtures using the hydrodynamic approach. Useful analytical formulas for the excitations spectrum, the correlation function, the static structure factor, and the superfluid fraction are derived. We find that in the case of highly imbalanced mixture, the superfluidity can occur in the dilute component only at extremely low temperatures. The behavior of the first-order correlation function for both dipolar and nondipolar Bose mixtures is deeply analyzed. Then we face the two-dimensional case which encodes a non-trivial phy…
We consider a mixture of two-component Fermi and (one-component) dipolar Bose gases in which both dipolar interaction and s-wave scattering between fermions of opposite spins are tunable. We show that in the long wavelength limit, the anisotropy in the Fermi-Fermi interaction induced by phonons of the dipolar condensate can strongly enhance the scattering in the triplet channel. We investigate in detail the conditions for achieving optimal critical temperature at which the triplet superfluid begins to compete with the singlet superfluid.
We study the dynamics of vortex dipoles in erbium ($^{168}$Er) and dysprosium ($^{164}$Dy) dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) by applying an oscillating blue-detuned laser (Gaussian obstacle). For observing vortex dipoles, we solve a nonlocal Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) equation in quasi two-dimensions in real-time. We calculate the critical velocity for the nucleation of vortex dipoles in dipolar BECs with respect to dipolar interaction strengths. We also show the dynamics of the group of vortex dipoles and rarefaction pulses in dipolar BECs. In the dipolar BECs with Gaussian obstacle, we obs…
We rigorously discuss the infrared behavior of the uniform three dimensional dipolar Bose systems. In particular, it is shown that low-temperature physics of the system is controlled by two parameters, namely isothermal compressibility and intensity of the dipole-dipole interaction. By using hydrodynamic approach we calculate the spectrum and damping of low-lying excitations and analyze infrared behavior of the one-particle Green's function. The low-temperature corrections to the anisotropic superfluid density as well as condensate depletion are found. Additionally we derive equations of the t…
We investigate long-range effects of the dipolar interaction in Bose-Einstein condensates by solving the time-dependent 3D Gross-Pitaevskii equation. We study the propagation of excitations between non-overlapping condensates when a collective mode is excited in one of the condensates. We obtain the frequency shifts due to the long-range character of the dipolar coupling for the bilayer and also the trilayer system when the dipolar mode is excited in one condensate. The propagation of the monopolar and quadrupolar modes are also investigated. The coupled-pendulum model is proposed to qualitati…
We study dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates for a realistic set of parameters close to actual experimental setups with dysprosium. Our analysis is based on the extended Gross-Pitaevskii equation, which we solve numerically exact on a three-dimensional grid. We present stability and phase diagrams, and study the expansion dynamics of dipolar condensates. Our calculations show signatures of the dipole-dipole interaction in terms of structured states and a deviation of the well-known inversion of the aspect ratio of the cloud during a time of flight.
We numerically study elongated helical spin textures in ferromagnetic spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates subject to dipolar interparticle forces. Stationary states of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation are solved and analyzed for various values of the helical wave vector and dipolar coupling strength. We find two helical spin textures which differ by the nature of their topological defects. The spin structure hosting a pair of Mermin-Ho vortices with opposite mass flows and aligned spin currents is stabilized for a nonzero value of the helical wave vector.
We study the formation and dynamics of bright solitons in a quasi-one-dimensional reduced mean-field Gross-Pitaevskii equation of a dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate with repulsive short-range interactions. The study is carried out using a variational approximation and a numerical solution. Plots of chemical potential and root mean square (rms) size of solitons are obtained for the quasi-one-dimensional model of three different dipolar condensates of 52Cr, 168Er and 164Dy atoms. The results achieved are in good agreement with those produced by the full three-dimensional mean-field model of the …
We study the Josephson oscillation and self trapping dynamics of a cigar-shaped dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate of $^{52}$Cr atoms polarized along the symmetry axis of an axially-symmetric double-well potential using the numerical solution of a mean-field model, for dominating repulsive contact interaction (large positive scattering length a) over an anisotropic dipolar interaction. Josephson-type oscillation emerges for small and very large number of atoms, whereas self trapping is noted for an intermediate number of atoms. The dipolar interaction pushes the system away from self trapping to…
With current magnetic field shielding and high precision detection in dipolar spinor Bose-Einstein condensates, it is possible to experimentally detect the low or zero field nonsecular dipolar dynamics. Here we analytically investigate the zero-field nonsecular magnetic dipolar interaction effect, with an emphasis on magnetization dynamics in a spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate under the single spatial mode approximation within the mean field theory. Due to the biaxial nature of the dipolar interaction, a novel resonance occurs in the condensate magnetization oscillation, contrast to the previou…
The spin squeezing protocols allow the dynamical generation of massively correlated quantum many-body states, which can be utilized in entanglement-enhanced metrology and technologies. We study a quantum simulator generating twisting dynamics realized in a two-component Bose-Hubbard model with dipolar interactions. We show that the interplay of contact and long-range dipolar interactions between atoms in the superfluid phase activates the anisotropic two-axis counter-twisting mechanism, accelerating the spin squeezing dynamics and allowing the Heisenberg-limited accuracy in spectroscopic measu…
Motivated by the recent experiments [H. Kadau et al., Nature (London) 530, 194 (2016); I. Ferrier-Barbut et al., arXiv:1601.03318] and theoretical prediction (F. Wächtler and L. Santos, arXiv:1601.04501), the ground state of a dysprosium Bose-Einstein condensate with strong dipole-dipole interaction is studied using the path-integral Monte Carlo method. It is shown that quantum fluctuation can stabilize the condensate against dipolar collapse.
We study the rotational properties of a dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a quasi-two- dimensional anisotropic trap, for an arbitrary orientation of the dipoles with respect to their plane of motion. Within the mean-field approximation we find that the lowest-energy state of the system depends strongly on the relative strength between the dipolar and the contact interactions, as well as on the size and the orientation of the dipoles, and the size and the orientation of the deformation of the trapping potential.
We used the Gross--Pitaevskii equations to investigate ferromagnetic resonance in spin-1 Bose--Einstein condensates with a magnetic dipole-dipole interaction. By introducing the dipole interaction, we obtained equations similar to the Kittel equations used to represent ferromagnetic resonance in condensed matter physics. These equations indicated that the ferromagnetic resonance originated from dipolar interaction, and that the resonance frequency depended upon the shape of the condensate. Furthermore, spin currents driven by spin diffusions are characteristic of this system.
We calculate the mean-field phase diagram of a zero-temperature, binary Bose mixture on a square optical lattice, where one species possesses a non-negligible dipole moment. Remarkably, this system exhibits supersolidity for anomalously weak dipolar interaction strengths, which are readily accessible with current experimental capabilities. The supersolid phases are robust, in that they occupy large regions in the parameter space. Further, we identify a first-order quantum phase transition between supersolid and superfluid phases. Our results demonstrate the rich features of the dipolar Bose mi…
We present a systematic study of dilute three-dimensional dipolar Bose gas employing a finite temperature perturbation theory (beyond the mean field). We analyze in particular the behavior of the anomalous density, we find that this quantity has a finite value in the limit of weak interactions at both zero and finite temperatures. We show that the presence of the dipole-dipole interaction (DDI) enhances fluctuations, the second order correlation function and thermodynamic quantities such as the chemical potential, the ground state energy, the compressibility and the superfluid fraction. We ide…
We consider a dilute homogeneous Bose gas with both an isotropic short-range contact interaction and an anisotropic long-range dipole-dipole interaction in a weak random potential at low temperature in three dimensions. Within the realm of Bogoliubov theory we analyze how both condensate and superfluid depletion are depleted due to quantum and thermal fluctuations as well as disorder fluctuations.
We study the statics and dynamics of a dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) droplet bound by inter-species contact interaction in a trapped non-dipolar BEC. Our findings are demonstrated in terms of stability plots of a dipolar 164Dy droplet bound in a trapped non-dipolar 87Rb BEC with a variable number of 164Dy atoms and the inter-species scattering length. A trapped non-dipolar BEC of a fixed number of atoms can only bind a dipolar droplet containing atoms less than a critical number for the inter-species scattering length between two critical values. The shape and size (statics) as well a…
We consider a dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate confined in an annular potential, with all the dipoles being aligned along some arbitrary direction. In addition to the dipole-dipole interaction, we also assume a zero-range hard-core potential. We investigate the stability of the system against collapse, as well as the stability of persistent currents as a function of the orientation of the dipoles and of the strength of the hard-core interaction.
A uniform dilute Bose gas of known density has a universal behavior as the atomic scattering length tends to infinity at unitarity while most of its properties are determined by a universal parameter $ξ$ relating the energies of the noninteracting and unitary gases. The usual mean-field equation is not valid in this limit and beyond mean-field corrections become important. We use a dynamical model including such corrections to investigate a trapped disk-shaped dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) and a dipolar BEC vortex for large scattering length. We study the sensitivity of our results on…
We consider a quantum impurity immersed in a dipolar Bose Einstein condensate and study the properties of the emerging polaron. We calculate the energy, effective mass and quasi-particle residue of the dipolar polaron and investigate their behaviour with respect to the strength of zero-range contact and a long-range dipolar interactions among the condensate atoms and with the impurity. While quantum fluctuations in the case of pure contact interactions typically lead to an increase of the polaron energy, dipole-dipole interactions are shown to cause a sign reversal. The described signatures of…
Dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates may present a rotonlike dispersion minimum, which has yet to be observed in experiments. We discuss a simple method to reveal roton excitations, based on the response of quasi-two-dimensional dipolar condensates against a weak lattice potential. By employing numerical simulations for realistic scenarios, we analyze the response of the system as a function of both the lattice spacing and the s-wave scattering length, showing that the roton minimum may be readily revealed in current experiments by the resonant population of Bragg peaks in time-of-flight measurem…
We report on the observation of the confinement-induced collapse dynamics of a dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate (dBEC) in a one-dimensional optical lattice. We show that for a fixed interaction strength the collapse can be initiated in-trap by lowering the lattice depth below a critical value. Moreover, a stable dBEC in the lattice may become unstable during the time-of-flight dynamics upon release, due to the combined effect of the anisotropy of the dipolar interactions and inter-site coherence in the lattice.
The ground state of a free standing, self-bound droplet comprising four hundred dipolar Bose particles with aligned dipole moments, with an additional purely repulsive two-body interaction, is investigated by Quantum Monte Carlo simulations. The focus here is on the evolution of the cluster as the effective range of the repulsive interaction is varied. We identify a ``classical'' regime, in which binding arises exclusively from the dipolar potential energy and the cluster is a quasi-one-dimensional filament, and a ``quantum'' regime of prolate droplets, held together to a significant degree by…
We investigate the ground-state and magnetic properties of a dipolar spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate trapped in a symmetric double-well potential. In particular, we focus on the spin-vortex states by assuming that each potential well is highly pancake shaped. We show that the presence of the double-well potential gives rise to two different spin configurations for the spin-vortex pair states. We also study the response of the coupled spin-vortex pair to static transverse magnetic fields.
We measure the excitation spectrum of a dipolar Chromium Bose Einstein Condensate with Raman-Bragg spectroscopy. The energy spectrum depends on the orientation of the dipoles with respect to the excitation momentum, demonstrating an anisotropy which originates from the dipole-dipole interactions between the atoms. We compare our results with the Bogoliubov theory based on the local density approximation, and, at large excitation wavelengths, with numerical simulations of the time dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation. Our results show an anisotropy of the speed of sound