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arXiv:1006.3550 · Physical Review Letters

Dynamics of a Tunable Superfluid Junction

Lindsay J. LeBlanc, Alma Bardon, J. McKeever, M. Extavour, Dylan Jervis, Joseph H. Thywissen, Francesco Piazza, Augusto Smerzi

Published Jan 12, 2011• 151 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We study the population dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a double-well potential throughout the crossover from Josephson dynamics to hydrodynamics. At barriers higher than the chemical potential, we observe slow oscillations well described by a Josephson model. In the limit of low barriers, the fundamental frequency agrees with a simple hydrodynamic model, but we also observe a second, higher frequency. A full numerical simulation of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation giving the frequencies and amplitudes of the observed modes between these two limits is compared to the data and is used to understand the origin of the higher mode. Implications for trapped matter-wave interferometers are discussed.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.106.025302

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Abstract The Josephson oscillation of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in a double-well potential is typically characterized by the population imbalance between the two wells. Within the two-mode approximation, the dynamics of the center of mass of the condensate is predicted to coincide with that of the population imbalance. However, numerical simulations reveal a discrepancy between the dynamics of the center of mass and that of the population imbalance, indicating that the two-mode model fails to fully capture the dynamics of BEC Josephson oscillations. To address this limitation, a four-mode approximation is employed to describe the dynamics of the system. The four-mode model not only describes the dynamics of the population imbalance but also accounts for the oscillation of the center of mass, thereby explaining the origin of the discrepancy between the two-mode model and the simulation results. Moreover, we find that although higher-order excitation modes are always present in Josephson oscillations, the two-mode model can still describe the dynamics of the population imbalance. This phenomenon is explained by the interference of population oscillations between local states. PACS: 03.75.Lm, 03.75.Kk, 67.85.De
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