Experimental Realization of a Relativistic Harmonic Oscillator

Kurt M. Fujiwara; Zachary A. Geiger; Kevin Singh; Ruwan Senaratne; Shankari V. Rajagopal; Mikhail Lipatov; Toshihiko Shimasaki; David M. Weld

doi:10.1088/1367-2630/aacb5a

arXiv · 1712.09501

Experimental Realization of a Relativistic Harmonic Oscillator

Kurt M. Fujiwara·Zachary A. Geiger·Kevin Singh·Ruwan Senaratne·Shankari V. Rajagopal·Mikhail Lipatov·Toshihiko Shimasaki·David M. Weld

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Abstract

We report the experimental study of a harmonic oscillator in the relativistic regime. The oscillator is composed of Bose-condensed lithium atoms in the third band of an optical lattice, which have an energy-momentum relation nearly identical to that of a massive relativistic particle, with an effective mass reduced below the bare value and a greatly reduced effective speed of light. Imaging the shape of oscillator trajectories at velocities up to 98% of the effective speed of light reveals a crossover from sinusoidal to nearly photon-like propagation. The existence of a maximum velocity causes the measured period of oscillations to increase with energy; our measurements reveal beyond-leading-order contributions to this relativistic anharmonicity. We observe an intrinsic relativistic dephasing of oscillator ensembles, and a monopole oscillation with exactly the opposite phase of that predicted for non-relativistic harmonic motion. All observed dynamics are in quantitative agreement with longstanding but hitherto-untested relativistic predictions.

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Kurt M. Fujiwara, Zachary A. Geiger, Kevin Singh, Ruwan Senaratne, Shankari V. Rajagopal, Mikhail Lipatov, Toshihiko Shimasaki, David M. Weld. 2017-12-27. Experimental Realization of a Relativistic Harmonic Oscillator. https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/aacb5a

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