Effect of optical disorder and single defects on the expansion of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a one-dimensional waveguide

Phys Rev Lett. 2005 Oct 21;95(17):170410. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.95.170410. Epub 2005 Oct 21.

Abstract

We investigate the one-dimensional expansion of a Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical guide in the presence of a random potential created with optical speckles. With the speckle the expansion of the condensate is strongly inhibited. A detailed investigation has been carried out varying the experimental conditions and checking the expansion when a single optical defect is present. The experimental results are in good agreement with numerical calculations based on the Gross-Pitaevskii equation.