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Nonequilibrium Equation of State for a Turbulent 2D Bose Gas
Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 203401 – Published 10 November, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/lh2x-jn4m
Abstract
Nonequilibrium equations of state can provide an effective thermodynamiclike description of far-from-equilibrium systems. We experimentally construct such an equation for a direct energy cascade in a turbulent two-dimensional Bose gas. Our homogeneous gas is continuously driven on a large length scale and, with matching dissipation on a small length scale, exhibits a nonthermal but stationary power-law momentum distribution. Our equation of state links the cascade amplitude with the underlying scale-invariant energy flux, and can, for different drive strengths, gas densities, and interaction strengths, be recast into a universal power-law form using scalings consistent with the Gross-Pitaevskii model.
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Note that for all our data the number of atoms at is still at least 50% of its initial value.
The particle number in our system is slowly decreasing in time, and we always report the instantaneous values of , , and . For all our main data (taken with the largest ), the system is always in a quasistatic turbulent state that is well characterized by these instantaneous values because the time, , that it takes for the cascade to propagate to (as seen in the delay of the onset of losses after we start driving the system) is at least 4 times shorter than the characteristic time scale of the particle loss [44].
See End Matter for additional details on Fig. 2, including the cascade-induced loss dynamics, measurements of the steady-state at different times, and individual experimental repetitions.
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