Expansion dynamics of a shell-shaped Bose-Einstein condensate

Abstract

Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) confined on shell-shaped surfaces have been proposed as a platform for exploring many nontrivial quantum phenomena on curved spaces. However, as the shell-shaped trapping potential generated with the conventional radio frequency dressing method is very sensitive to gravity, so far experimental studies of shell BECs can only be performed in micro-gravity environments. Here, we overcome this difficulty and create a shell BEC in the presence of Earth's gravity with immiscible dual-species BECs of sodium and rubidium atoms. After minimizing the displacement between the centers of mass of the two BECs with a magic-wavelength optical dipole trap, the interspecies repulsive interaction ensures the formation of a closed shell of sodium atoms with its center filled by rubidium atoms. Releasing the double BEC together from the trap, we observe explosion of the filled shell accompanied by energy transfer from the inner BEC to the shell BEC. With the inner BEC removed, we obtain a hollow shell BEC which shows self-interference as a manifestation of implosion. Our results pave an alternative way for investigating many of the intriguing physics offered by shell BECs.