%0 Journal Article
%T Controlled Collapse of a Bose-Einstein Condensate
%A J. L. Roberts
%A N. R. Claussen
%A S. L. Cornish
%A E. A. Donley
%A E. A. Cornell
%A C. E. Wieman
%J Physics
%D 2001
%I arXiv
%R 10.1103/PhysRevLett.86.4211
%X The point of instability of a Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC) due to attractive interactions was studied. Stable 85-Rb BECs were created and then caused to collapse by slowly changing the atom-atom interaction from repulsive to attractive using a Feshbach resonance. At a critical value, an abrupt transition was observed in which atoms were ejected from the condensate. By measuring the onset of this transition as a funstion of number and attractive interactions strength, we determined the stability condition to be N|a|/(aho)=0.461(12)(54), slightly lower than the predicted value of 0.574.
%U http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0102116v1