Feshbach resonance induced shock waves in Bose-Einstein condensates

Phys Rev Lett. 2004 Jun 4;92(22):220403. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.92.220403. Epub 2004 Jun 3.

Abstract

We propose a method for generating shock waves in Bose-Einstein condensates by rapidly increasing the value of the nonlinear coefficient using Feshbach resonances. We show that in a cigar-shaped condensate there exist primary (transverse) and secondary (longitudinal) shock waves. We analyze how the shocks are generated in multidimensional scenarios and describe the related phenomenology.