2001/06/30 by J. Mark Schuster, J. Schuster, A. Marte +5 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics #Strong Light-Matter Interactions #cond-mat
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.87.170404
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 170404 (2001) · 4 pages, 2 figures, 1 table
openalex publication_date 2001/10/08 · arxiv created 2003/05/09 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Collisional avalanches are identified to be responsible for an 8-fold increase of the initial loss rate of a large (87)Rb condensate. We show that the collisional opacity of an ultracold gas exhibits a critical value. When exceeded, losses due to inelastic collisions are substantially enhanced. Under these circumstances, reaching the hydrodynamic regime in conventional Bose-Einstein condensation experiments is highly questionable.