Nonequilibrium phase transition with gravitational-like interaction in a cloud of cold atoms

We propose to use a cloud of laser-cooled atoms in a quasi-two-dimensional trap to investigate a nonequilibrium collapse phase transition in the presence of a gravitational-like interaction. Using theoretical arguments and numerical simulations, we show that, like in two-dimensional gravity, a trans...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Barré, J., Marcos, B., Wilkowski, David
Other Authors: School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2014
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/104045
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/19523
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
Description
Summary:We propose to use a cloud of laser-cooled atoms in a quasi-two-dimensional trap to investigate a nonequilibrium collapse phase transition in the presence of a gravitational-like interaction. Using theoretical arguments and numerical simulations, we show that, like in two-dimensional gravity, a transition to a collapsed state occurs below a critical temperature. In addition and as a signature of the nonequilibrium nature of the system, persistent particle currents, dramatically increasing close to the phase transition, are observed.