The critical velocity in the BEC-BCS crossover

4 March 2015

Photo: AG Moritz

We map out the critical velocity in the crossover from Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) to Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer superfluidity with ultracold 6Li gases. A small attractive potential is dragged along lines of constant column density. The rate of the induced heating increases steeply above a critical velocity vcIn the same samples, we measure the speed of sound vs by exciting density waves and compare the results to the measured values of vc. We perform numerical simulations in the BEC regime and find very good agreement, validating the approach. In the strongly correlated regime, where theoretical predictions only exist for the speed of sound, our measurements of vc provide a testing ground for theoretical approaches. More information can be found here.

Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 095301 (2015)