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arXiv:1209.5204 · Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics

Quantum dynamics and macroscopic quantum tunnelling of two weakly coupled condensates

René John Kerkdyk, Subhasis Sinha

Published Sep 5, 2013• 5 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We study the quantum dynamics of a Bose Josephson junction(BJJ) made up of two coupled Bose-Einstein condensates. Apart from the usual ac Josephson oscillations, two different dynamical states of BJJ can be observed by tuning the inter-particle interaction strength, which are known as '$π$-oscillation' with relative phase $π$ between the condensates and 'macroscopic self-trapped' (MST) state with finite number imbalance. By choosing appropiate intial state we study above dynamical branches quantum mechanically and compare with classical dynamics. The stability region of the '$π$-oscillation' is separated from that of 'MST' state at a critical coupling strength. Also a significant change in the energy spectrum takes place above the critical coupling strength, and pairs of (quasi)-degenerate excited states appear. The original model of BJJ can be mapped on to a simple Hamiltonian describing quantum particle in an 'effective potential' with an effective Planck constant. Different dynamical states and degenerate excited states in the energy spectrum can be understood in this 'effective potential' approach. Also possible novel quantum phenomena like 'macroscopic quantum tunneling'(MQT) become evident from the simple picture of 'effective potential'. We study decay of metastable '$π$-oscillation' by MQT through potential barrier. The doubly degenerate excited states in the energy spectrum are associated with the classically degenerate MST states with equal and opposite number imbalance. We calculate the energy splitting between these quasi-degenerate excited states due to MQT of the condensate between classically degenerate MST states.

DOI
10.1088/0953-4075/46/18/185301

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We study the quantum dynamics of a Bose Josephson junction(BJJ) made up of two coupled Bose-Einstein condensates. Apart from the usual ac Josephson oscillations, two different dynamical states of BJJ can be observed by tuning the inter-particle interaction strength, which are known as 'πππ-oscillation' with relative phase πππ between the condensates and 'macroscopic self-trapped' (MST) state with finite number imbalance. By choosing appropiate intial state we study above dynamical branches quantum mechanically and compare with classical dynamics. The stability region of the 'πππ-oscillation' is separated from that of 'MST' state at a critical coupling strength. Also a significant change in the energy spectrum takes place above the critical coupling strength, and pairs of (quasi)-degenerate excited states appear. The original model of BJJ can be mapped on to a simple Hamiltonian describing quantum particle in an 'effective potential' with an effective Planck constant. Different dynamical states and degenerate excited states in the energy spectrum can be understood in this 'effective potential' approach. Also possible novel quantum phenomena like 'macroscopic quantum tunneling'(MQT) become evident from the simple picture of 'effective potential'. We study decay of metastable 'πππ-oscillation' by MQT through potential barrier. The doubly degenerate excited states in the energy spectrum are associated with the classically degenerate MST states with equal and opposite number imbalance. We calculate the energy splitting between these quasi-degenerate excited states due to MQT of the condensate between classically degenerate MST states.
We investigate the effect of dissipation in a Bose-Josephson junction (BJJ) coupled to baths of bosons at its two sites. Apart from the dynamical transition due to repulsive interactions, the BJJ undergoes a quantum phase transition by increasing the coupling strength with the bath modes. We analyze this system by mapping to an equivalent spin model coupled to the bosonic modes. The excitation energies and fluctuation of number imbalance are obtained within a Holstein-Primakoff approximation, which exhibits vanishing of the energy gap and enhanced quantum fluctuations at the critical point. We study the dynamics of BJJ using a time-dependent variational method and analyze stability of different types of steady states. As a special case we study in detail the phase space dynamics of BJJ coupled to a single mode, which reveals diffusive and incoherent behavior with increasing coupling to the bath mode. The dynamical steady states corresponding to the π oscillation and self-trapped state become unstable when their oscillation frequencies are in resonance with the bath modes. We study the Josephson dynamics in the presence of an Ohmic bath with Gaussian noise to incorporate the thermal fluctuations and obtain the Josephson oscillation frequency and damping analytically. We also observe the transition to the symmetry-broken state for strong coupling as well as decay of π oscillation and a self-trapped state to the ground state due to dissipation. Variation of the phase fluctuation with temperature of the bath shows similar behavior as observed in experiment. Finally we discuss the experimental setup to study the observable effects of dissipation in BJJ.
We investigate the effect of dissipation in a Bose Josephson junction (BJJ) coupled to bath of bosons at two sites as an application of the generalized spin-boson model. Apart from the dynamical transition due to repulsive interactions, the BJJ undergoes a quantum phase transition by increasing the coupling strength with the bath modes. We analyze this system by mapping to an equivalent spin model coupled to the bosonic modes. The excitation energies and fluctuation of number imbalance are obtained within Holstein-Primakoff approximation, which exhibits vanishing of energy gap and enhanced quantum fluctuations at the critical coupling. We study the dynamics of BJJ using time-dependent variational method and analyze stability of different types of steady states. As a special case, we study in details the phase space dynamics of BJJ coupled to a single-mode, which reveals diffusive and incoherent behaviour with increasing coupling to the bath mode. The dynamical steady states corresponding to the Pi-oscillation and self-trapped state become unstable in the region where their oscillation frequencies are in resonance with the bath modes. We investigate the time evolution of number imbalance and relative phase in presence of Ohmic bath with Gaussian noise to incorporate thermal fluctuations. Apart from the damping of Josephson oscillations and transition to symmetry broken state for strong coupling, we observe the decay of Pi-oscillation and self-trapped state to the ground state as a result of dissipation. Variation of phase fluctuation with temperature of the bath shows similar behaviour as observed in the experiments.
It is shown that the classical dynamics of 1:1 resonance interaction between two identical linearly coupled Duffing oscillators is equivalent to the symmetric (non-biased) case of `macroscopic' quantum dynamics of two weakly coupled Bose-Einstein condensates. The analogy develops through the boson Josephson junction equations, however, reduced to a single conservative energy partition (EP) oscillator. The derived oscillator is solvable in quadratures, furthermore it admits asymptotic solution in terms of elementary functions after transition to the action-angle variables. Energy partition and coherency indexes are introduced to provide a complete characterization of the system dynamic states through the state variables of the EP oscillator. In particular, nonlinear normal and local mode dynamics of the original system associate with equilibrium points of such oscillator. Additional equilibrium points - the local modes - may occur on high energy level as a result of the symmetry breaking bifurcation, which is equivalent to the macroscopic quantum self-trapping effect in boson Josephson junction. Finally, since the Hamiltonian of EP oscillator is always quadratic with respect its linear momentum, the idea of second quantization can be explored without usual transition to the rigid pendulum approximation.
We explore the interplay between tunneling and interatomic interactions in the dynamics of a bosonic Josephson junction. We tune the scattering length of an atomic ^{39}K Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a double-well trap to investigate regimes inaccessible to other superconducting or superfluid systems. In the limit of small-amplitude oscillations, we study the transition from Rabi to plasma oscillations by crossing over from attractive to repulsive interatomic interactions. We observe a critical slowing down in the oscillation frequency by increasing the strength of an attractive interaction up to the point of a quantum phase transition. With sufficiently large initial oscillation amplitude and repulsive interactions, the system enters the macroscopic quantum self-trapping regime, where we observe coherent undamped oscillations with a self-sustained average imbalance of the relative well population. The exquisite agreement between theory and experiments enables the observation of a broad range of many body coherent dynamical regimes driven by tunable tunneling energy, interactions and external forces, with applications spanning from atomtronics to quantum metrology.
We investigate the fully quantum evolution of the population imbalance in a perfectly symmetric Bose-Josephson junction modeled by a two-mode Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian, focusing on the validity of macroscopic quantum self-trapping beyond the mean-field theory. We show that for any finite number of particles, the exact quantum dynamics leads to the breakdown of macroscopic quantum self-trapping after a finite time, regardless of the initial state. Using the symmetries of the Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian, we provide a mathematical demonstration of this result and analyze the spectral properties governing the dynamics. We identify a branching behavior in the eigenvalue differences and a nontrivial structure of the population-imbalance amplitudes. These features allow us to distinguish two clearly different dynamical regimes and to elucidate the mechanism leading to the emergence of a quasi–macroscopic quantum self-trapping regime for large particle numbers. These findings bridge the gap between mean-field predictions and exact quantum dynamics and provide insight into the emergence of classical nonlinear behavior from finite quantum many-body systems.
We propose a bosonic Josephson junction (BJJ) in two nonlinear mechanical resonators coupled through two-phonon exchange interaction induced by quadratic optomechanical couplings. The nonlinear dynamical equations and effective Hamiltonian are derived to describe behaviors of the BJJ. We show that the BJJ can work in two different dynamical regimes: Josephson oscillation and macroscopic self-trapping. The system can transfer from one regime to the other one when the self-interaction and asymmetric parameters exceed their critical values. We show that the transition from Josephson oscillation to macroscopic self-trapping can be induced by the phonon damping of the asymmetric BJJ. Our results open up a way to demonstrate BJJ with two-phonon exchange interaction and might be applied to other systems.