Exciting Collective Oscillations in a Trapped 1D Gas

Abstract

We report on the realization of a trapped one dimensional Bose gas and its characterization by means of measuring its lowest lying collective excitations. The quantum degenerate Bose gas is prepared in a 2D optical lattice and we find the ratio of the frequencies of the lowest compressional (breathing) mode and the dipole mode to be $(ω_B/ω_D)^2\simeq3.1$, in accordance with the Lieb-Liniger and mean-field theory. For a thermal gas we measure $(ω_B/ω_D)^2\simeq4$. By heating the quantum degenerate gas we have studied the transition between the two regimes. For the lowest number of particles attainable in the experiment the kinetic energy of the system is similar to the interaction energy and we enter the strongly interacting regime.