Measuring the Superfluid Fraction of an Ultracold Atomic Gas

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• Nigel Cooper (Cambridge)
• Monday 25 January 2010, 15:00-16:00
• Physics East E320b.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Vincent Boyer.

Central to the understanding of the physics of degenerate Bose gases are the concepts of Bose-Einstein condensation and superfluidity. Both phenomena admit clear quantitative definitions, allowing a Bose gas to be characterised by ``condensate’’ and ``superfluid’’ fractions. For ultra-cold atomic Bose gases, the condensate fraction is readily measured through the mapping of occupation numbers in momentum space to real space by expansion imaging. While characteristic signatures of superfluidity have been observed in atomic gases, there has been no quantitative measurement of the superfluid fraction. In this talk, I will describe how the superfluid fraction of an atomic gas can be measured using a light-induced vector potential. The proposed method is closely analogous to the classic experimental method of Andronikashvili for measuring the superfluid fraction of liquid helium.

This talk is part of the Cold Atoms series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• Bham Talks
• Cold Atoms
• Physics East E320b
• What's on in Physics?

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