Can three-body recombination purify a quantum gas?

Journal article

Three-body recombination in quantum gases is traditionally associated with heating, but it was recently found that it can also cool the gas. We show that in a partially condensed three-dimensional homogeneous Bose gas three-body loss could even purify the sample, that is, reduce the entropy per particle and increase the condensed fraction $\eta$. We predict that the evolution of $\eta$ under continuous three-body loss can, depending on small changes in the initial conditions, exhibit two qualitatively different behaviours - if it is initially above a certain critical value, $\eta$ increases further, whereas clouds with lower initial $\eta$ evolve towards a thermal gas. These dynamical effects should be observable under realistic experimental conditions.

Authors: Dogra, L; Glidden, J; Hilker, T; Eigen, C; Cornell, E

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• Journal: Physical Review Letters
• Volume: 123
• Article number: 020405
• Publication date: 2019-07-12
• Acceptance date: 2019-06-25
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.020405
• EISSN: 1079-7114
• ISSN: 0031-9007
• Keywords: cond-mat.quant-gas; atomic, molecular and optical; general physics; condensed matter and material physics; cond-mat.stat-mech; quant-ph; physics.atom-ph; statistical physics