Sunday, 14 August 2016

Molecular Bose-Einstein Condensation and Bound States in Lithium Niobate

The most outstanding experimental discovery in recent times is Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) in 1995 and excellent reviews on BEC exist in the vast ocean of literature (Ketterle, Rev. Mod. Phys. 74, (2002)1131). This has triggered both theoretical and experimental works on this fascinating topic of research. The reasons for these vigorous activities are: a) it gives an opportunity to open a new window for a macroscopic view of quantum mechanics, and b) it makes such studies most interesting in the field of matter-wave relations. Experiments show nonlinear excitation within the wave that is known as solitons, and the properties of such bosonic particles in a condensate could manipulate them in periodic or other potential. Some evidence exists for the formation of both dark and bright solitions in the condensate, but the concept of bound state still remains somewhat illusive, despite a lot of activities on nonlinear optical systems that are important for many devices. This could create motivation to study bound state with a connection to BEC.

      Further, both lower and upper bounds are found out in relation to frequency and the extent of condensation in the bound state. Although ferroelectrics data are used for general theoretical study, it can also be extended to other relevant systems, e.g. in magnon system with two-well Landau potential (Demokritov, Nature, 433, (2006) 430). This effort is made through Klein-Gordon (K-G) model which on perturbation gives rise to NLSE that is a variant of GPE, which is somehow popular and commonly used for studying BEC. Landau-Ginzburg (L-G) potential is used in our discrete Hamiltonian for nonlinear optical materials like ferroelectrics (Phys. Rev. B 81, (2010) 064104) and metamaterials (Phys. Rev. B 84, (2011) 155429) to probe localization for discrete breathers. Also, a perturbation on our K-G model gives rise to NLSE (Phys. Rev. B 86, (2012) 184101) and showed both bright and dark solitons with ‘discrete energy levels’, estimated via hypergeometric function.

      The coherent molecular BEC was shown in one-dimension by mean field theories of parametric nonlinearities that convert two solitons to one (and vice-versa) for non-integrable equations (Drummond, Phys. Rev E 54, (1996) 896). Molecular BEC was invoked for a reaction between molecules to engineer condensates of heavier molecules where macroscopic occupation of single molecular quantum state gives rise to the coherent bosonic stimulation (Kokkelman, Phys Rev. A 63, (2001) R031601).  BEC was also reported on lithium molecules in an optical trap with spin mixture of fermionic Li atoms by measuring a collective excitation mode (Denschlag, Science 302, (2003) 2101). This gives rise to further motivation to theoretically explore BEC in the realm of bound state that might help towards better understanding of switching phenomenon in a vast area of devices including many nano devices involving lithium niobate. The intention is to show that molecular BEC formation is possible in this system that is described by frequency and temperature in the bound state.

      The dark and bright solitons in lithium niobate ferroelectric are already established in Klein-Gordon lattice. For small oscillations, the modal dynamics is characterized as bound states, revealed via associated Legendre polynomial. Bose Einstein condensation takes place around bosonic particles having different wave functions within the bound states in the temperature region T = 0 to Tc. The pairing and interplay between the dark and bright solitons occur with their effect on the condensation. The bound state disappears after a critical frequency (i.e. equivalent to a critical temperature). The quasi-particles then become phonons in the unbound states that propagate through the domains, when scattering length increases.


      Despite mathematical rigour, the physics of the above work may not be palatable by many relevant Physics Journals. However, a recent effective mass calculation shows the temperature of BEC formation lies in the range of micro-Kelvin.

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