2001/06/10 by Gerald Hechenblaikner, G. Hechenblaikner, E. Hodby +4
Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.88.070406
4 pages, 4 figures
arxiv created 2001/06/10 · openalex publication_date 2002/01/31 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We have observed the expansion of vortex-free, rotating Bose condensates after their sudden release from a slowly rotating anisotropic trap. Conservation of angular momentum, combined with the constraint of irrotational flow, cause the rotating condensate to expand in a distinctively different way to one released from a static (nonrotating) trap. This difference provides clear experimental evidence of the purely irrotational velocity field associated with a superfluid. We observed this behavior in absorption images taken along the rotation axis.