title: Observation of shock waves in a strongly interacting Fermi gas.
abstract: We study collisions between two strongly interacting atomic Fermi gas clouds. We observe exotic nonlinear hydrodynamic behavior, distinguished by the formation of a very sharp and stable density peak as the clouds collide and subsequent evolution into a boxlike shape. We model the nonlinear dynamics of these collisions by using quasi-1D hydrodynamic equations. Our simulations of the time-dependent density profiles agree very well with the data and provide clear evidence of shock wave formation in this universal quantum hydrodynamic system.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA.
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Joseph
authors.forename: J E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Thomas
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kulkarni
authors.forename: A G
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Abanov