Dipole Oscillations of a Bose-Einstein Condensate in Presence of Defects and Disorder

M. Albert ¹, T. Paul ¹, N. Pavloff ¹, P. Leboeuf ¹

Physical Review Letters 100 (2008) 250405

We consider dipole oscillations of a trapped dilute Bose-Einstein condensate in the presence of a scattering potential consisting either in a localized defect or in an extended disordered potential. In both cases the breaking of superfluidity and the damping of the oscillations are shown to be related to the appearance of a nonlinear dissipative flow. At supersonic velocities the flow becomes asymptotically dissipationless.

• 1. Laboratoire de Physique Théorique et Modèles Statistiques (LPTMS),
  CNRS : UMR8626 – Université Paris XI – Paris Sud