Universität zu Köln

Helmrich, S., Arias, A., Lochead, G., Wintermantel, T. M., Buchhold, M., Diehl, S. and Whitlock, S. (2020). Signatures of self-organized criticality in an ultracold atomic gas. Nature, 577 (7791). S. 481 - 491. LONDON: NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP. ISSN 1476-4687

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Abstract

Self-organized criticality is an elegant explanation of how complex structures emerge and persist throughout nature(1), and why such structures often exhibit similar scale-invariant properties(2-9). Although self-organized criticality is sometimes captured by simple models that feature a critical point as an attractor for the dynamics(10-15), the connection to real-world systems is exceptionally hard to test quantitatively(16-21). Here we observe three key signatures of self-organized criticality in the dynamics of a driven-dissipative gas of ultracold potassium atoms: self-organization to a stationary state that is largely independent of the initial conditions; scale-invariance of the final density characterized by a unique scaling function; and large fluctuations of the number of excited atoms (avalanches) obeying a characteristic power-law distribution. This work establishes a well-controlled platform for investigating self-organization phenomena and non-equilibrium criticality, with experimental access to the underlying microscopic details of the system. A driven-dissipative gas of ultracold potassium atoms is used to demonstrate three key signatures of self-organized criticality, and provides a system in which the phenomenon can be experimentally tested.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Helmrich, S. UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Arias, A. UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Lochead, G. UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Wintermantel, T. M. UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Buchhold, M. UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Diehl, S. UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Whitlock, S. UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-348830
DOI:	10.1038/s41586-019-1908-6
Journal or Publication Title:	Nature
Volume:	577
Number:	7791
Page Range:	S. 481 - 491
Date:	2020
Publisher:	NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
Place of Publication:	LONDON
ISSN:	1476-4687
Language:	English
Faculty:	Unspecified
Divisions:	Unspecified
Subjects:	no entry
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language UNIVERSAL DYNAMICS; PARAMETER Multiple languages Multidisciplinary Sciences Multiple languages
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/34883