Darmstadt 2008 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 37: Quantengase (Wechselwirkungseffekte I)

Q 37.2: Vortrag

Donnerstag, 13. März 2008, 11:15–11:30, 1C

Are there semi-fluxons in cold atomic gases? — •Michael Eckart¹, Reinhold Walser¹, Wolfgang P. Schleich¹, Dieter Koelle², Reinhold Kleiner², and Edward Goldobin² — ¹Institut für Quantenphysik, Universität Ulm, 89069 Ulm — ²Physikalisches Institut-Experimentalphysik II, Universität Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen

Fluxons are single quanta of magnetic flux (Φ₀≈2.07×10⁻¹⁵ Wb) which may exist in superconducting long Josephson junctions [1]. By making a Josephson junction out of two parts with a phase difference of π between the tunneling supercurrents, one can construct a so-called 0-π junction, where the ground state may correspond to a spontaneously created magnetic flux of Φ₀/2 localized at the 0-π boundary. Such semifluxons are intensively investigated in superconducting structures [2-4].

In this contribution we propose a technique to create and study similar 0-π junctions in cold atomic gases [5,6]. We investigate the interaction of single atoms as well as BECs with laser light to gain insight into the fundamental physics that eventually also sheds light on the macroscopic behavior of the semifluxons in superconductors.

[1] W. Buckel and R. Kleiner, Superconductivity: Fundamentals and applications, Wiley-VCH, Berlin (2004)
E. Goldobin et al., Phys. Rev. B 72, 054527 (2005)
K. Buckenmaier et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 117006 (2007)
H. Hilgenkamp et al., Nature 422, 50 (2003)
V.M. Kaurov and A.B. Kuklov, Phys. Rev. A 73, 013627 (2006)
E. Goldobin et al., New J. Phys., in preparation