Watching a Superfluid Untwist Itself: Recurrence of Rabi Oscillations in a Bose-Einstein Condensate

Abstract

The order parameter of a condensate with two internal states can continuously distort in such a way as to remove twists that have been imposed along its length. We observe this effect experimentally in the collapse and recurrence of Rabi oscillations in a magnetically trapped, two-component Bose-Einstein condensate of ${}^{87}\mathrm{Rb}$.