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arXiv:1006.3024 · Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics

Josephson tunnelling of dark solitons in a double-well potential

H Susanto, Jesús Cuevas–Maraver, P. Krüger

Published Apr 21, 2011• 15 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We study the dynamics of matter waves in an effectively one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensate in a double well potential. We consider in particular the case when one of the double wells confines excited states. Similarly to the known ground state oscillations, the states can tunnel between the wells experiencing the physics known for electrons in a Josephson junction, or be self-trapped. As the existence of dark solitons in a harmonic trap are continuations of such non-ground state excitations, one can view the Josephson-like oscillations as tunnelings of dark solitons. Numerical existence and stability analysis based on the full equation is performed, where it is shown that such tunneling can be stable. Through a numerical path following method, unstable tunneling is also obtained in different parameter regions. A coupled-mode system is derived and compared to the numerical observations. Regions of (in)stability of Josephson tunneling are discussed and highlighted. Finally, we outline an experimental scheme designed to explore such dark soliton dynamics in the laboratory.

DOI
10.1088/0953-4075/44/9/095003

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We study the dynamics of matter waves in an effectively one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensate in a double well potential. We consider in particular the case when one of the double wells confines excited states. Similarly to the known ground state oscillations, the states can tunnel between the wells experiencing the physics known for electrons in a Josephson junction, or be self-trapped. As the existence of dark solitons in a harmonic trap are continuations of such non-ground state excitations, one can view the Josephson-like oscillations as tunnelings of dark solitons. Numerical existence and stability analysis based on the full equation is performed, where it is shown that such tunneling can be stable. Through a numerical path following method, unstable tunneling is also obtained in different parameter regions. A coupled-mode system is derived and compared to the numerical observations. Regions of (in)stability of Josephson tunneling are discussed and highlighted. Finally, we outline an experimental scheme designed to explore such dark soliton dynamics in the laboratory.
We consider a binary repulsive Bose-Einstein condensate in a harmonic trap in one spatial dimension and investigate particular solutions consisting of two dark-bright solitons. There are two different stationary solutions characterized by the phase difference in the bright component, in-phase and out-of-phase states. We show that above a critical particle number in the bright component, a symmetry-breaking bifurcation of the pitchfork type occurs that leads to a new asymmetric solution whereas the parental branch, i.e., the out-of-phase state, becomes unstable. These three different states support different small amplitude oscillations, characterized by an almost stationary density of the dark component and a tunneling of the bright component between the two dark solitons. Within a suitable effective double-well picture, these can be understood as the characteristic features of a bosonic Josephson junction (BJJ), and we show within a two-mode approach that all characteristic features of the BJJ phase space are recovered. For larger deviations from the stationary states, the simplifying double-well description breaks down due to the feedback of the bright component onto the dark one, causing the solitons to move. In this regime we observe intricate anharmonic and aperiodic dynamics, exhibiting remnants of the BJJ phase space.
The Josephson effect can be observed in a Bose-Einstein condensate in a double-well potential, which is attributed to the tunneling of bosons between two wells. We propose a multi-mode theory to investigate the dynamics of local excitations in a one-dimensional condensate in a double-well potential. We show that the system can be described by two independent two-mode models. The Josephson oscillation and the self-trapping of local collective excitations are predicted analytically and confirmed by numerical simulation.
We study stability of the first excited state of quasi-one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates in a double-well potential, which is called ``$\ensuremath{\pi}$ state.'' The density notch in the $\ensuremath{\pi}$ state can be regarded as a standing dark soliton. From the excitation spectrum, we determine the critical barrier height, above which the $\ensuremath{\pi}$ state is dynamically unstable. We find that the critical barrier height decreases monotonically as the number of condensate atoms increases. We also simulate the dynamics of the $\ensuremath{\pi}$ state by solving the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation. We show that due to the dynamical instability the dark soliton starts to move away from the trap center and exhibits a large-amplitude oscillation.
We study the one-dimensional dynamics of dark-dark solitons in the miscible regime of two density-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates having repulsive interparticle interactions within each condensate (g>0g>0g>0). By using an adiabatic perturbation theory in the parameter g12/g{g}_{12}/gg12​/g, we show that, contrary to the case of two solitons in scalar condensates, the interactions between solitons are attractive when the interparticle interactions between condensates are repulsive g12>0{g}_{12}>0g12​>0. As a result, the relative motion of dark solitons with equal chemical potential $\ensuremath{\mu}$ is well approximated by harmonic oscillations of angular frequency ${w}_{r}=(\ensuremath{\mu}/\ensuremath{\hbar})\sqrt{(8/15){g}_{12}/g}$. We also show that, in finite systems, the resonance of this anomalous excitation mode with the spin-density mode of lowest energy gives rise to alternating dynamical instability and stability fringes as a function of the perturbative parameter. In the presence of harmonic trapping (with angular frequency $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Omega}}$) the solitons are driven by the superposition of two harmonic motions at a frequency given by ${w}^{2}={(\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Omega}}/\sqrt{2})}^{2}+{w}_{r}^{2}$. When g12<0{g}_{12}<0g12​<0, these two oscillators compete to give rise to an overall effective potential that can be either single well or double well through a pitchfork bifurcation. All our theoretical results are compared with numerical solutions of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation for the dynamics and the Bogoliubov equations for the linear stability. A good agreement is found between them.
We numerically investigate the soliton tunnelling process in double-well potential trapped Bose-Einstein condensate. Comparing with the usual low energy few particle tunnelling process, we find that the soliton tunnelling leads to massive particle transport between two wells. The {population imbalance} between two wells is not evolving sinusoidally with the time as the Josephson plasma oscillation, but shows a higher density contrast square-wave pattern due to the reflections at the trapping potential boundaries. Such unusual behavior clearly demonstrates the topologically stable, localized nature of solitons that propagate in a nonlinear medium without spreading. The square-wave oscillation of soliton also provides measurable dynamics to define a qubit in cold altom system.
We consider the stability and dynamics of multiple dark solitons in cigar-shaped Bose-Einstein condensates. Our study is motivated by the fact that multiple matter-wave dark solitons may naturally form in such settings as per our recent work [Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 130401 (2008)]. First, we study the dark soliton interactions and show that the dynamics of well-separated solitons (i.e., ones that undergo a collision with relatively low velocities) can be analyzed by means of particle-like equations of motion. The latter take into regard the repulsion between solitons (via an effective repulsive potential) and the confinement and dimensionality of the system (via an effective parabolic trap for each soliton). Next, based on the fact that stationary, well-separated dark multisoliton states emerge as a nonlinear continuation of the appropriate excited eigenstates of the quantum harmonic oscillator, we use a Bogoliubov-de Gennes analysis to systematically study the stability of such structures. We find that for a sufficiently large number of atoms, multiple soliton states are dynamically stable, while for a small number of atoms, we predict a dynamical instability emerging from resonance effects between the eigenfrequencies of the soliton modes and the intrinsic excitation frequencies of the condensate. Finally, we present experimental realizations of multisoliton states including a three-soliton state consisting of two solitons oscillating around a stationary one and compare the relevant results to the predictions of the theoretical mean-field model.