Quantum solids, liquids, and gases program:Quantum dynamics in ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic condensates

by Dr Ryan Barnett (Joint Quantum Institute)

Monday 9 Aug 2010, 13:45 → 14:45 Europe/Stockholm

In this talk I will first give an overview of the field spinor condensates, explaining how they exhibit many phenomena not found in scalar condensates. I will then discuss dynamics in spin-one 23Na and 87Rb condensates, addressing recent experiments at NIST and Berkeley respectively. For the antiferromagnetic 23Na system, we consider tight traps so that the dynamics occur only in the spin degrees of freedom. I will describe an exact mapping of the system onto a quantum rotor model, and show how this sheds light on its dynamics. I will also describe how this system is a natural candidate to observe collapse and revival phenomena. I will then move on to discuss ferromagnetic condensates in larger traps. For this, we applied the truncated Wigner approximation to the spinor system with all spatial and spin degrees of freedom. We will use this as a tool to address the possibility of thermalization at long times.