CQuIC Seminars
A Supersonically Expanding Bose-Einstein Condensate: Analogies to the Expanding Universe?
Presented by Gretchen Campbell, University of Maryland
The standard cosmological picture involves a universe that is expanding, sometimes many orders of magnitude faster than the speed of light. This expansion impacts the quantum fields that exist inside our universe. Using a ring-shaped Bose-Einstein condensate we've created a system that realizes the basic features of this expansion. Specifically, we demonstrate redshifting of phonons and a reheating effect that is similar to pre-heating after the inflation stage of the universe. We also observe that spontaneous non-zero winding numbers appear in the ring after the expansion is complete. We predict the widths of the resulting winding number distributions using Monte Carlo simulations according to the geodesic rule. We hope that these experiments will open up the possibility of exploring interesting cosmological physics in Bose-Einstein condensates and other quantum systems.
3:30 pm, Thursday, November 17, 2016
PAIS-2540, PAIS
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