Inflationary Dynamics and Particle Production in a Toroidal Bose-Einstein Condensate

I will present a theoretical study of the dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) trapped inside an expanding toroid that can realize an analogue inflationary universe. As the system expands, the phonons in the BEC undergo redshift and damping due to quantum pressure effects. This rapidly expanding toroidal BEC can exhibit spontaneous particle creation, that can be studied in the context of an initial coherent state wavefunction. Finally, I discuss how particle creation would be revealed in the atom density and density correlations.

A. Bhardwaj, D. Vaido & D. E. Sheehy, arXiv:2009.05611