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Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 025301 (2009) [4 pages]

Impurity Crystal in a Bose-Einstein Condensate

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David C. Roberts1 and Sergio Rica2
1Theoretical Division and Center for Nonlinear Studies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA
2Laboratoire de Physique Statistique, CNRS-Ecole normale supérieure, 24 rue Lhomond, 75005 Paris, France

Received 27 October 2008; revised 25 November 2008; published 15 January 2009

We investigate the behavior of impurity fields immersed in a larger condensate field in various dimensions. We discuss the localization of a single impurity field within a condensate and note the effects of surface energy. We derive the functional form of the attractive condensate-mediated interaction between two impurities. Generalizing the analysis to N impurity fields, we show that within various parameter regimes a crystal of impurity fields can form spontaneously in the condensate. Finally, the system of condensate and crystallized impurity structure is shown to have nonclassical rotational inertia, which is characteristic of superfluidity; i.e., the system can be seen to exhibit supersolid behavior.

© 2009 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.025301
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.025301
PACS:
67.80.−s, 03.75.Kk, 03.75.Mn, 67.85.De