skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Quantum de Laval nozzle: Stability and quantum dynamics of sonic horizons in a toroidally trapped Bose gas containing a superflow

Journal Article · · Physical Review. A
 [1];  [2];  [3]
  1. School of Chemical and Physical Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand)
  2. ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum-Atom Optics, Department of Physics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072 (Australia)
  3. Jack Dodd and Dan Walls Centre for Photonics and Ultra Cold Atoms, University of Otago (New Zealand)

We study an experimentally realizable system containing stable black hole-white hole acoustic horizons in toroidally trapped Bose-Einstein condensates--the quantum de Laval nozzle. We numerically obtain stationary flow configurations and assess their stability using Bogoliubov theory, finding both in hydrodynamic and nonhydrodynamic regimes there exist dynamically unstable regions associated with the creation of positive and negative energy quasiparticle pairs in analogy with the gravitational Hawking effect. The dynamical instability takes the form of a two mode squeezing interaction between resonant pairs of Bogoliubov modes. We study the evolution of dynamically unstable flows using the truncated Wigner method, which confirms the two mode squeezed state picture of the analogue Hawking effect for low winding number.

OSTI ID:
21016025
Journal Information:
Physical Review. A, Vol. 76, Issue 2; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.76.023617; (c) 2007 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1050-2947
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English