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Can Three-Body Recombination Purify a Quantum Gas?

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Dogra, Lena H 
Glidden, Jake AP 
Hilker, Timon A 
Cornell, Eric A 

Abstract

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 η. We predict that the evolution of η under continuous three-body loss can, depending on small changes in the initial conditions, exhibit two qualitatively different behaviors-if it is initially above a certain critical value, η increases further, whereas clouds with lower initial η evolve towards a thermal gas. These dynamical effects should be observable under realistic experimental conditions.

Description

Keywords

cond-mat.quant-gas, cond-mat.quant-gas, cond-mat.stat-mech, physics.atom-ph, quant-ph

Journal Title

Phys Rev Lett

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0031-9007
1079-7114

Volume Title

123

Publisher

American Physical Society (APS)

Rights

All rights reserved
Sponsorship
European Office of Aerospace Research and Development (EOARD) (W911NF-15-1-0444)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/N011759/1)
European Research Council (682285)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/R043396/1)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/P009565/1)