Angular Momentum of a Magnetically Trapped Atomic Condensate

Journal Article · Fri Jan 19 00:00:00 EST 2007 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.98.030403· OSTI ID:20861608

Zhang, P; Jen, H H ^[1]; Sun, C P ^[2]; You, L ^[1]

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1. School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332 (United States)
2. Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100080 (China)

For an atomic condensate in an axially symmetric magnetic trap, the sum of the axial components of the orbital angular momentum and the hyperfine spin is conserved. Inside an Ioffe-Pritchard trap (IPT) whose magnetic field (B field) is not axially symmetric, the difference of the two becomes surprisingly conserved. In this Letter we investigate the relationship between the values of the sum or difference angular momentums for an atomic condensate inside a magnetic trap and the associated gauge potential induced by the adiabatic approximation. Our result provides significant new insight into the vorticity of magnetically trapped atomic quantum gases.

• OSTI ID: 20861608
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Vol. 98, Issue 3; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.030403; (c) 2007 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0031-9007
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ADIABATIC APPROXIMATION
AXIAL SYMMETRY
CONDENSATES
GAUGE INVARIANCE
MAGNETIC FIELDS
ORBITAL ANGULAR MOMENTUM
POTENTIALS
SPIN
TRAPPING
TRAPS