Cold Strongly Coupled Atoms Make a Near-perfect Liquid

Physics – Nuclear Physics – Nuclear Theory

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

10 pages

Scientific paper

10.1103/PhysRevA.72.043601

Feshbach resonances of trapped ultracold alkali atoms allow to vary the atomic scattering length a. At very large values of a the system enters an universal strongly coupled regime in which its properties--the ground state energy, pressure {\it etc.}--become independent of a. We discuss transport properties of such systems. In particular, the universality arguments imply that the shear viscosity of ultracold Fermi atoms at the Feschbach resonance is proportional to the particle number density n, and the Plank constant \hbar \eta=\hbar n \alpha_\eta, where \alpha_\eta is a universal constant. Using Heisenberg uncertainty principle and Einstein's relation between diffusion and viscosity we argue that the viscosity has the lower bound given by \alpha_{\eta} \leq (6\pi)^{-1}. We relate the damping of low-frequency density oscillations of ultracold optically trapped ^{6}Li atoms to viscosity and find that the value of the coefficient \alpha_\eta is about 0.3. We also show that such a small viscosity can not be explained by kinetic theory based on binary scattering. We conclude that the system of ultracold atoms near the Feshbach resonance is a near-ideal liquid.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

Cold Strongly Coupled Atoms Make a Near-perfect Liquid does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Cold Strongly Coupled Atoms Make a Near-perfect Liquid, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Cold Strongly Coupled Atoms Make a Near-perfect Liquid will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-664731

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.