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Polarons in Bose-Einstein condensates

Fernando Cucchietti, Los Alamos National Laboratory

(Session 13 : Sunday from 13:30-14:00)

Abstract. I will describe the behavior of impurities in a Bose-Einstein condensate using analogies with the problem of electrons in ionic crystals -- i.e. the "quantum simulation" of condensed-matter polarons using ultra-cold atoms. In the strong coupling regime, the impurities take on a self-localized state that is smaller than the healing length of the condensate. For intermediate to weak coupling, a different variational approach allows us to calculate analytic expressions for the effective mass of the BEC-polarons and its dispersion relation. I will discuss applications of this quantum simulation as well as its experimental viability.