Multiresonant spinor dynamics in a Bose-Einstein condensate

Phys Rev Lett. 2009 Nov 6;103(19):195302. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.195302. Epub 2009 Nov 6.

Abstract

We analyze the spinor dynamics of a 87Rb F=2 condensate initially prepared in the m(F) = 0 Zeeman sublevel. We show that this dynamics, characterized by the creation of correlated atomic pairs in m(F) = +/-1, presents an intriguing multiresonant magnetic-field dependence induced by the trap inhomogeneity. This dependence is directly linked to the most unstable Bogoliubov spin excitations of the initial m(F) = 0 condensate, showing that, in general, even a qualitative understanding of the pair-creation efficiency in a spinor condensate requires a careful consideration of the confinement.