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Thursday, June 25, 2009
12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
T-DO Conference Room

Quantum Lunch

When the vacuum is a drag: superfluidity 1D Bose condensates,

Andrew Sykes
University of Queensland

Superfluidity is a remarkable macroscopic quantum phenomenon that was discovered in 1938 in liquid helium below 2.17 K by Kapitza, Allen and Misener. London was the first person to make the connection with the theory of Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) and degenerate Bose gases developed by Einstein in 1924, and BEC is now understood to be an important ingredient of superfluidity. One of the features of a superfluid is that it exhibits frictionless flow below a certain "critical" velocity, and this is well understood at the level of mean-field theory. However, the inclusion of quantum fluctuations gives rise to a puzzle that has a connection to the Casimir force between two dielectrics in a vacuum. Calculations suggest that the scattering of quantum fluctuations lead to a non-zero drag force at any velocity. Here I will discuss our recent work on calculating the drag force on an obstacle moving through a 1D Bose condensate.

Host: David Roberts