From cosmology to cold atoms: observation of Sakharov oscillations in a quenched atomic superfluid.
basic_science · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 23907531.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/science.1237557.
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Abstract
Predicting the dynamics of many-body systems far from equilibrium is a challenging theoretical problem. A long-predicted phenomenon in hydrodynamic nonequilibrium systems is the occurrence of Sakharov oscillations, which manifest in the anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background and the large-scale correlations of galaxies. Here, we report the observation of Sakharov oscillations in the density fluctuations of a quenched atomic superfluid through a systematic study in both space and time domains and with tunable interaction strengths. Our work suggests a different approach to the study of nonequilibrium dynamics of quantum many-body systems and the exploration of their analogs in cosmology and astrophysics.