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Anisotropic Expansion of a Thermal Dipolar Bose Gas
Y Tang1,2, A G Sykes3, N Q Burdick2,4
1Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
Abstract:
We report on the anisotropic expansion of ultracold bosonic dysprosium gases at temperatures above quantum degeneracy and develop a quantitative theory to describe this behavior. The theory expresses the postexpansion aspect ratio in terms of temperature and microscopic collisional properties by incorporating Hartree-Fock mean-field interactions, hydrodynamic effects, and Bose-enhancement factors. Our results extend the utility of expansion imaging by providing accurate thermometry for dipolar thermal Bose gases. Furthermore, we present a simple method to determine scattering lengths in dipolar gases, including near a Feshbach resonance, through observation of thermal gas expansion.
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