Calibrating dipolar interaction in an atomic condensate

We reexamine the topic of a dipolar condensate with the recently derived more rigorous pseudopotential for dipole-dipole interaction [A. Derevianko, Phys. Rev. A 67, 033607 (2003)]. Based on the highly successful variational technique, we find that all dipolar effects estimated before ( using the bare dipole-dipole interaction) become significantly larger, i.e., are amplified by the new velocity-dependent pseudopotential, especially in the limit of large or small trap aspect ratios. This result points to a promising prospect for detecting dipolar effects inside an atomic condensate.