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arXiv:1407.7633 · Physical Review A

From short-time diffusive to long-time ballistic dynamics: The unusual center-of-mass motion of quantum bright solitons

Christoph Weiß, S. A. Gardiner, Heinz‐Peter Breuer

Published Jun 15, 2015• 15 citations
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Abstract

Brownian motion is ballistic on short time scales and diffusive on long time scales. Our theoretical investigations indicate that one can observe the exact opposite---an ``anomalous diffusion process'' where initially diffusive motion becomes ballistic on longer time scales---in an ultracold atomic system with a size comparable to macromolecules. This system is the center-of-mass motion of a quantum matter-wave bright soliton for which the dominant source of decoherence is three-particle losses. Our simulations show that such unusual center-of-mass dynamics should be observable on experimentally accessible time scales.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.91.063616

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Brownian motion is ballistic on short time scales and diffusive on long time scales. Our theoretical investigations indicate that one can observe the exact opposite---an ``anomalous diffusion process'' where initially diffusive motion becomes ballistic on longer time scales---in an ultracold atomic system with a size comparable to macromolecules. This system is the center-of-mass motion of a quantum matter-wave bright soliton for which the dominant source of decoherence is three-particle losses. Our simulations show that such unusual center-of-mass dynamics should be observable on experimentally accessible time scales.
We show that the spreading of the center-of-mass density of ultracold attractively interacting bosons can become superballistic in the presence of decoherence, via one-, two-, and/or three-body losses. In the limit of weak decoherence, we analytically solve the numerical model introduced in [Phys. Rev. A 91, 063616 (2015)]. The analytical predictions allow us to identify experimentally accessible parameter regimes for which we predict superballistic spreading of the center-of-mass density. Ultracold attractive Bose gases form weakly bound molecules, quantum matter-wave bright solitons. Our computer simulations combine ideas from classical field methods (``truncated Wigner'') and piecewise deterministic stochastic processes. While the truncated Wigner approach to use an average over classical paths as a substitute for a quantum superposition is often an uncontrolled approximation, here it predicts the exact root-mean-square width when modeling an expanding Gaussian wave packet. In the superballistic regime, the leading order of the spreading of the center-of-mass density can thus be modeled as a quantum superposition of classical Gaussian random walks in velocity space.
Taking an open quantum system approach, we derive a collective equation of motion for the dynamics of a matter-wave bright soliton moving through a thermal cloud of a distinct atomic species. The reservoir interaction involves energy transfer without particle transfer between the soliton and thermal cloud, thus damping the soliton motion without altering its stability against collapse. We derive a Langevin equation for the soliton center-of-mass velocity in the form of an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process with analytical drift and diffusion coefficients. This collective motion is confirmed by simulations of the full stochastic projected Gross-Pitaevskii equation for the matter-wave field. The system offers a pathway for experimentally observing the elusive energy-damping reservoir interaction and a clear realization of collective Brownian motion for a mesoscopic superfluid droplet.
At very low temperature, a quasi-one-dimensional ensemble of atoms with attractive interactions tend to form a bright soliton.When exposed to a sufficiently weak external potential, the shape of the soliton is not modified, but its external motion is affected.We develop in detail the Bogoliubov approach for the problem, treating, in a non-perturbative way, the motion of the center of mass of the soliton.Quantization of this motion allows us to discuss its long time properties.In particular, in the presence of a disordered potential, the quantum motion of the center of mass of a bright soliton may exhibit Anderson localization, on a localization length which may be much larger than the soliton size and could be observed experimentally.
Dark and gray soliton-like states are shown to emerge from numerically constructed superpositions of translationally invariant eigenstates of the interacting Bose gas in a toroidal trap. The exact quantum many-body dynamics reveals a density depression with ballistic spreading that is absent in classical solitons. A simple theory based on finite-size bound states of holes with quantum-mechanical center-of-mass motion quantitatively explains the time-evolution and predicts quantum effects that could be observed in ultracold gas experiments. The soliton phase step is found relevant for explaining finite-size effects in numerical simulations. An invariant fundamental soliton width is shown to deviate from the Gross-Pitaevskii predictions in the interacting regime and vanishes in the Tonks-Girardeau limit.
We consider the motion of a matter-wave bright soliton under the influence of a cloud of thermal particles. In the ideal one-dimensional system, the scattering process of the quasiparticles with the soliton is reflectionless; however, the quasiparticles acquire a phase shift. In the realistic system of a Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a tight waveguide trap, the transverse degrees of freedom generate an extra nonlinearity in the system which gives rise to finite reflection and leads to dissipative motion of the soliton. We calculate the velocity and temperature-dependent frictional force and diffusion coefficient of a matter-wave bright soliton immersed in a thermal cloud.
Conservation laws in a quantum many-body system play a direct role in its dynamic behavior. Understanding the effect of weakly breaking a conservation law due to coherent and incoherent errors is thus crucial, e.g., in the realization of reliable quantum simulators. In this work, we perform exact numerics and time-dependent perturbation theory to study the dynamics of \textit{symmetry violation} in quantum many-body systems with slight coherent (at strength λλλ) or incoherent (at strength γγγ) breaking of their local and global symmetries. We rigorously prove the symmetry violation to be a divergence measure in Hilbert space. Based on this, we show that symmetry breaking generically leads to a crossover in the divergence growth from diffusive behavior at onset times to ballistic or hyperballistic scaling at intermediate times, before diffusion dominates at long times. More precisely, we show that for local errors the leading coherent contribution to the symmetry violation cannot be of order lower than ∝λt2\proptoλt^2∝λt2 while its leading-order incoherent counterpart is typically of order ∝γt\proptoγt∝γt. This remarkable interplay between unitary and incoherent gauge-breaking scalings is also observed at higher orders in projectors onto symmetry (super)sectors. Due to its occurrence at short times, the diffusive-to-ballistic crossover is expected to be readily accessible in modern ultracold-atom and NISQ-device experiments.