Related Experiment Video
Updated: Nov 27, 2025

Cooling an Optically Trapped Ultracold Fermi Gas by Periodical Driving
Published on: March 30, 2017
Nonadiabatic Energy Fluctuations of Scale-Invariant Quantum Systems in a Time-Dependent Trap
Mathieu Beau1, Adolfo Del Campo2,3,1,4
1Department of Physics, University of Massachusetts, Boston, MA 02125, USA.
Abstract:
We consider the nonadiabatic energy fluctuations of a many-body system in a time-dependent harmonic trap. In the presence of scale-invariance, the dynamics becomes self-similar and the nondiabatic energy fluctuations can be found in terms of the initial expectation values of the second moments of the Hamiltonian, square position, and squeezing operators. Nonadiabatic features are expressed in terms of the scaling factor governing the size of the atomic cloud, which can be extracted from time-of-flight images. We apply this exact relation to a number of examples: the single-particle harmonic oscillator, the one-dimensional Calogero-Sutherland model, describing bosons with inverse-square interactions that includes the non-interacting Bose gas and the Tonks-Girdardeau gas as limiting cases, and the unitary Fermi gas. We illustrate these results for various expansion protocols involving sudden quenches of the trap frequency, linear ramps and shortcuts to adiabaticity. Our results pave the way to the experimental study of nonadiabatic energy fluctuations in driven quantum fluids.
Related Concept Videos
Atomic Nuclei: Nuclear Relaxation Processes
Atomic Nuclei: Types of Nuclear Relaxation
In spin–lattice or longitudinal relaxation, the excited spins exchange energy with the surrounding lattice as they return to the lower energy level. Among several mechanisms that contribute to spin–lattice relaxation, magnetic dipolar interactions are significant. Here, the excited nucleus transfers...
Free Energy Changes for Nonstandard States
Atomic Nuclei: Nuclear Spin State Population Distribution
The de Broglie Wavelength
Deactivation Processes: Jablonski Diagram

