Controlling the group velocity of colliding atomic Bose-Einstein condensates with Feshbach resonances

Abstract

We report on a proposal to change the group velocity of a small Bose Einstein Condensate (BEC) upon collision with another BEC in analogy to slowing of light passing through dispersive media. We make use of ultracold collisions near a magnetic Feshbach resonance, which gives rise to a sharp variation in scattering length with collision energy and thereby changes the group velocity. A generalized Gross-Pitaveskii equation is derived for a small BEC moving through a larger stationary BEC. We denote the two condensates by laser and medium BEC, respectively, to highlight the analogy to a laser pulse travelling through a medium. We derive an expression for the group velocity in a homogeneous medium as well as for the difference in distance, $δ$, covered by the laser BEC in the presence and absence of a finite-sized medium BEC with a Thomas-Fermi density distribution. For a medium and laser of the same isotopic species, the shift $δ$ has an upper bound of twice the Thomas-Fermi radius of the medium. For typical narrow Feshbach resonances and a medium with number density $10^{15}$ cm$^{-3}$ up to 85% of the upper bound can be achieved, making the effect experimentally observable. We also derive constraints on the experimental realization of our proposal.

5 pages, 3 figures