Abstract
We have observed a Bose-Einstein condensate in a dilute gas of in the metastable state. We find a critical temperature of and a typical number of atoms at the threshold of . The maximum number of atoms in our condensate is about . An approximate value for the scattering length is measured. The mean elastic collision rate at threshold is then estimated to be about , indicating that we are deeply in the hydrodynamic regime. The typical decay time of the condensate is , which places an upper bound on the rate constants for two-body and three-body inelastic collisions.
- Received 19 March 2001
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.86.3459
©2001 American Physical Society