title: Surface excitations of a bose-einstein condensate
abstract: Surface modes in a Bose-Einstein condensate of sodium atoms have been studied. We observed excitations of standing and rotating quadrupolar and hexadecapolar modes. The modes were excited with high spatial and temporal resolution using the optical dipole force of a rapidly scanning laser beam. This novel technique is very flexible and should be useful for the study of rotating Bose-Einstein condensates and vortices.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Onofrio
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Durfee
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Raman
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kohl
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Kuklewicz
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Ketterle