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arXiv:1312.4667 · Physical Review A

Tunneling, self-trapping, and manipulation of higher modes of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a double well

Jérémie Gillet, Miguel Ángel García-March, Thomas Busch, Fernando Sols

Published Feb 13, 2014• 36 citations
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Abstract

We consider an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate trapped in a symmetric one-dimensional double-well potential in the four-mode approximation and show that the semiclassical dynamics of the two ground-state modes can be strongly influenced by a macroscopic occupation of the two excited modes. In particular, the addition of the two excited modes already unveils features related to the effect of dissipation on the condensate. In general, we find a rich dynamics that includes Rabi oscillations, a mixed Josephson-Rabi regime, self-trapping, chaotic behavior, and the existence of fixed points. We investigate how the dynamics of the atoms in the excited modes can be manipulated by controlling the atomic populations of the ground states.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.89.023614

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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.
Summary form only given. Dynamical control of the atomic tunneling between two Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC's) confined in a double-well potential is predicted to occur when laser pulses induce transition between one of the condensate state and the excited state which brings about phase shifts for the condensate wave function, leading to transition between macroscopic quantum self-trapping, which is a self-maintained population imbalance between two BEC's due to interatomic interaction, and large amplitude oscillations. We investigate this phenomenon for the case of a three-level system with two condensate states and an excited state.
We study the coherent nonlinear tunneling dynamics of a binary mixture of Bose-Einstein condensates in a double-well potential. We demonstrate the existence of a type of mode associated with the ``swapping'' of the two species in the two wells of the potential. In contrast to the symmetry-breaking macroscopic quantum self-trapping (MQST) solutions, the swapping modes correspond to the tunneling dynamics that preserves the symmetry of the double-well potential. As a consequence of two distinct types of broken-symmetry MQST phases where the two species localize in different potential wells or coexist in the same well, the corresponding symmetry-restoring swapping modes result in dynamics where the two species either avoid or chase each other. In view of the possibility to control the interaction between the species, the binary mixture offers a very robust system to observe these novel effects as well as the phenomena of Josephson oscillations and $\ensuremath{\pi}$ modes.
A Bose-Einstein condensate in a modulated, one-dimensional, anharmonic potential can exhibit dynamical tunneling between islands of regular motion in phase space. With increasingly repulsive atomic interactions, dynamical tunneling is predicted to cease due to self-trapping [S. Wüster ]. This suppression of tunneling oscillations is related to the same phenomenon that occurs in the two-mode dynamics of a repulsively interacting Bose-Einstein condensate in a double-well potential. Here we present a two-mode model for dynamical tunneling based on nonlinear Floquet states and examine the range of validity of the approximation. We characterize nonlinear dynamical tunneling for different trap strengths, modulation amplitudes, and effective Planck constants. Using the linear Floquet states we derive an expression for the critical nonlinearity beyond which tunneling ceases. Finally we demonstrate the dynamical instability of selected nonlinear Floquet states and show how to initialize some Floquet states in experiments. Our detailed survey will enable experiments to target accessible parameter regimes for the study of nonlinear dynamical tunneling.
We consider a Bose-Einstein condensate in a double-well potential undergoing a dynamical transition from the regime of Josephson oscillations to the regime of self-trapping. We analyze the statistical properties of the ground state (or the highest excited state) of the Hamiltonian in these two regimes for attractive (repulsive) interactions. We demonstrate that it is impossible to describe the transition within the mean-field theory. In contrast, the transition proceeds through a strongly correlated delocalized state, with large quantum fluctuations, and spontaneous breaking of the symmetry.
We examine the dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a symmetric double-well potential for a broad range of nonlinear couplings. We demonstrate the existence of a region, beyond those of Josephson oscillations and self-trapping, which involves the dynamical excitation of the third mode of the double-well potential. We develop a simple semiclassical model for the coupling between the second and third modes that describes very satisfactorily the full time-dependent dynamics. Experimental conditions are proposed to probe this phenomenon.