SIGNIFICANT EVENTS - SCIENCE EVENTS
04/27/01

Amplification of trap relative displacements for mixtures of Bose-Einstein condensates

S.-T. Chui of Deleware University reports that, together with V. Ryzhov and E. Tarayava from the Institute ofHigh Pressure Physics in Troitsk, Russia, they found that the average positions of two clouds of Bose-Einstein condensates are orders of magnitude larger than the separation of the traps that hold the two clouds. This amplification of the trap displacement is due to the proximity to an instability point where the two clouds separates like two halves of an apple. The basic idea is the same as the amplification in modern electronics, where the amplification factor comes from the proximity to the instability point of the feedback loop. These results will be described at next week's Pan Pacific Basin Workshop, and a paper has been submitted to Physical Review Letters.