Probing dipolar effects with condensate shape oscillation

We discuss the low-energy shape oscillations of a magnetically trapped atomic condensate including the spin dipole interaction. When the nominal isotropic s-wave interaction strength becomes tunable through a Feshbach resonance (e.g., as for 8 5 Rb atoms), anisotropic dipolar effects are shown to be detectable under current experimental conditions [E. A. Donley et al., Nature (London) 412, 295 (2001)].