Observation of shock waves in a strongly interacting Fermi gas

Abstract

We study collisions between two strongly interacting atomic Fermi gas clouds. We observe exotic nonlinear hydrodynamic behavior, distinguished by the formation of a very sharp and stable density peak as the clouds collide and subsequent evolution into a box-like shape. We model the nonlinear dynamics of these collisions using quasi-1D hydrodynamic equations. Our simulations of the time-dependent density profiles agree very well with the data and provide clear evidence of shock wave formation in this universal quantum hydrodynamic system.