Hydrodynamics of shock waves in ultracold non-degenerate dipolar gases.

The hydrodynamics of an ultracold, non-degenerate gas of harmonically trapped dipolar atoms is studied. We numerically simulate this system using direct simulation Monte Carlo methods in the regime where interactions are dominated by two-body collisions, as for instance can be achieved in ultracold gases of Dy or Er. We subject the gas to a short-pulse perturbation which is common in hydrodynamic studies of shock waves, emphasizing the anisotropies in hydrodynamic phenomena resulting from the anisotropic collision cross sections of the diploles. This work extends observations of anisotropic rethermalization of a cold, dipolar gas previously seen in [1,2]. Here, shock wave hydrodynamics is studied in the less explored low-temperature regime, leading to a emergence of rich phenomena. This work was supported by the NSF.

[1] K. Aikawa et al, PRL 113, 263201 (2014).
[2] Y. Tang et al, PRA 92, 022703 (2015).