Effect of Optical Disorder and Single Defects on the Expansion of a Bose-Einstein Condensate in a One-Dimensional Waveguide

Abstract

We investigate the one-dimensional expansion of a Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical guide in the presence of a random potential created with optical speckles. With the speckle the expansion of the condensate is strongly inhibited. A detailed investigation has been carried out varying the experimental conditions and checking the expansion when a single optical defect is present. The experimental results are in good agreement with numerical calculations based on the Gross-Pitaevskii equation.