Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking in a Quenched Ferromagnetic Spinor Condensate

We observe spontaneous symmetry breaking in a F=1 $^{87}$Rb spinor condensate after it is quenched past a ``polar'' to ferromagnetic quantum phase transition. As an initially unmagnetized condensate is brought to low magnetic field, nondestructive phase contrast images reveal the spontaneous formation of ferromagnetic domains with a characteristic length scale of 6 microns, much smaller than the size of the condensate. Concurrent with the formation of these domains, we also observe topological defects which we characterize as singly charged spin vortices. The time scale of the evolution is well described by a dynamical instability resulting from a competition between the quadratic Zeeman energy and the spin dependent interaction energy. Recent progress from this study will be presented.