2001/02/07 by J. L. Roberts, Jacob Roberts, N. R. Claussen +6 · 6 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics #Strong Light-Matter Interactions #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.86.4211
4 pages, 2 figures (postscript)
arxiv created 2001/02/07 · openalex publication_date 2001/05/07 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
The point of instability of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) due to attractive interactions was studied. Stable 85Rb BECs were created and then caused to collapse by slowly changing the atom-atom interaction from repulsive to attractive using a Feshbach resonance. At a critical value, an abrupt transition was observed in which atoms were ejected from the condensate. By measuring the onset of this transition as a function of number and attractive interaction strength, we determined the stability condition to be N(absolute value of a) / a(ho) = 0.459+/-0.012+/-0.054, slightly lower than the predicted value of 0.574.