Observation of a superfluid Hall effect

Observation of a superfluid Hall effect

Measurement techniques based upon the Hall effect are invaluable tools in condensed-matter physics. When an electric current flows perpendicular to a magnetic field, a Hall voltage develops in the direction transverse to both the current and the field. In semiconductors, this behavior is routinely u...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 109; no. 27; pp. 10811 - 10814
Main Authors: LeBlanc, Lindsay J, Jiménez-García, Karina, Williams, Ross A, Beeler, Matthew C, Perry, Abigail R, Phillips, William D, Spielman, Ian B
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States National Academy of Sciences 03-07-2012
National Acad Sciences
Subjects:
Atoms
Bose Einstein condensates
Cold Temperature
Condensed matter physics
Density
Electric Conductivity
Electric current
Electrical resistivity
Electromagnetism
Electrons
Evaluation Studies as Topic
Gases
Hall effect
Hydrodynamics
Magnetic fields
Magnetics - methods
Measurement techniques
Physical Sciences
prediction
Quantum Theory
Semiconductors
Superfluidity
Tensors
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Measurement techniques based upon the Hall effect are invaluable tools in condensed-matter physics. When an electric current flows perpendicular to a magnetic field, a Hall voltage develops in the direction transverse to both the current and the field. In semiconductors, this behavior is routinely used to measure the density and charge of the current carriers (electrons in conduction bands or holes in valence bands)—internal properties of the system that are not accessible from measurements of the conventional resistance. For strongly interacting electron systems, whose behavior can be very different from the free electron gas, the Hall effect’s sensitivity to internal properties makes it a powerful tool; indeed, the quantum Hall effects are named after the tool by which they are most distinctly measured instead of the physics from which the phenomena originate. Here we report the first observation of a Hall effect in an ultracold gas of neutral atoms, revealed by measuring a Bose–Einstein condensate’s transport properties perpendicular to a synthetic magnetic field. Our observations in this vortex-free superfluid are in good agreement with hydrodynamic predictions, demonstrating that the system’s global irrotationality influences this superfluid Hall signal.
Bibliography:http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1202579109
ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Undefined-1
ObjectType-Feature-3
content type line 23
Edited by* Allan H. MacDonald, University of Texas, Austin, TX, and approved May 3, 2012 (received for review February 15, 2012)
Author contributions: L.J.L. led the data taking effort in which K.J.-G., R.A.W., M.C.B., A.R.P., W.D.P., and I.B.S. participated; L.J.L. and I.B.S. performed numerical and analytic calculations; I.B.S. suggested the initial measurements; and L.J.L., K.J.-G., R.A.W., M.C.B., A.R.P., W.D.P., and I.B.S. wrote the paper.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1202579109