Hollow Bose-Einstein Condensates
How are objects that are fully-filled different from those that are hollow? Does physics care? Does quantum physics care?
Collaborators and I conducted an expansive theoretical study of hollow Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs). In this inherently quantum system akin to superfluid shells found naturally occuring in a variety of physical settings, the hollow nature manifests in the physics of collective modes, system's response to gravity and its ability to nucleate vortices when stirred or rotated.
As hollow BECs have not been successfully realized on Earth, our work is connected to an ongoing experiment at the Cold Atoms Laboratory onboard the International Space Station.
Related publications:
K. Padavic, K. Sun et al, Vortices on Hollow BEC Shells, in preparation
K. Padavic et al, Physics of hollow Bose-Einstein Condensates, Europhys. Lett. 120 20004 (2018)