Molecular Signatures in Hybrid Atomic/Molecular Bose-Einstein Condensates

Abstract

As it was proposed and recently verified experimentally, the mechanism of Feshbach resonance in a condensate can create a second condensate component of molecules that coexists with the atomic condensate. In this work we investigate signatures of the presence of the molecular condensate through the equilibrium properties and collective excitations of the hybrid system of atoms and molecules, subjected to a trap, employing a time-dependent variational ansatz. We show that the shape of the condensate changes significantly by the presence of the molecules and that modes unique to this hybrid system appear at observable frequencies.