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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 41: Quantengase: Dipolare Gase

Q 41.7: Talk

Thursday, March 5, 2009, 12:00–12:15, Audi-A

Decay rates of attractive Bose-Einstein condensates with long-range interaction — •Axel Keller, Torsten Schwidder, Jörg Main, and Günter Wunner — 1. Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Stuttgart, 70550 Stuttgart

The ground state of a trapped Bose-Einstein condensate with attractive interaction is known to be metastable in a certain range of (negative) scattering lengths. We study the decay of this state for condensates with long-range dipolar and electromagnetically induced 1/r interaction. The decay rates due to thermal excitation and macroscopic quantum tunnelling are calculated using different methods, including transition state theory, and compared to the rate of atom loss by two-body and three-body inelastic collisions.