Session KP01 - Poster Session III.
POSTER session, Tuesday afternoon, March 23
Exhibit Hall, GWCC
The interactions that create an intermediate quasi-bound molecule in the binary atom Feshbach resonance, create a second, molecular, condensate in the many-body Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC). The coexisting condensates interact by coherently exchanging pairs of atoms. The contribution to the many-body energy of this novel type of inter-condensate tunneling depends on the relative phase of the atomic and molecular condensates, and reaches its minimum if the phases of the condensates differ by \pi. The population dynamics of the double condensate BEC reveals that the system has two distinct stationary states: the above mentioned state with condensates of opposite sign and a state with condensates of the same sign. The particular state that the experimental system finds itself in, depends on its history. If the BEC was brought near-resonance by adiabatically decreasing the detuning, starting from far-above resonance, the condensates will have the same sign. If, on the other hand the detuning was increased from below resonance, the atomic and molecular condensates can be of opposite sign. Interestingly, although the same sign mixture maximizes the energy, the corresponding system can nevertheless be stable. We discuss the implications of the molecule loss-processes, and we point out the similarities with an analogue in non-linear optics.