Spontaneous Emergence of Phase Coherence in a quasiparticle Bose-Einstein Condensate

Abstract

Since their prediction by Einstein at the dawn of quantum mechanics, Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs), owing to their property to show quantum phenomena on macroscopic scales, are drawing increasing attention across various fields in physics. They are the subject of many fascinating observations in various physical systems, from liquid helium to diluted atomic gases. In addition to real particles like atoms and composite bosons such as Cooper pairs or excitons, this phenomenon is also observed in gases of quasiparticles such as polaritons and magnons - quanta of spin-wave excitations in magnetic media. The fundamental property of the BEC state is its coherence, which is represented by a precisely defined phase of the corresponding wave function, which arises spontaneously and encompasses all particles gathered at the bottom of their spectrum. Until now, the BEC phase was only revealed in phenomena depending on the spatial phase difference, such as interference, second order coherence, and macroscopic BEC motions - supercurrents, superfluidity and Josephson oscillations. Here, we present a method for the direct time-domain measurement of the magnon BEC coherent state phase relative to an outside reference signal. We report the emergence of spontaneous coherence from a freely evolving magnon gas, which manifests as the condensation of magnons into a uniform precession state with minimal energy and a well-defined phase. These findings confirm all postulated fundamental properties of quasiparticle condensates, provide access to a new degree of freedom in such systems, and open up the possibility of information processing using microwave-frequency magnon BECs.