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arXiv:1707.02106 · Physical Review A

Long-time expansion of a Bose-Einstein condensate: Observability of Anderson localization

Stefan Donsa, Harald Hofstätter, Othmar Koch, Joachim Burgdörfer, Iva Březinová

Published Oct 31, 2017• 21 citations
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Abstract

We numerically explore the long-time expansion of a one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensate in a disorder potential employing the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. The goal is to search for unique signatures of Anderson localization in the presence of particle-particle interactions. Using typical experimental parameters, we show that the time scale for which the nonequilibrium dynamics of the interacting system begins to diverge from the noninteracting system exceeds the observation times up to now accessible in the experiment. We find evidence that the long-time evolution of the wave packet is characterized by (sub)diffusive spreading and a growing effective localization length, suggesting that interactions destroy Anderson localization.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.96.043630

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We numerically explore the long-time expansion of a one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensate in a disorder potential employing the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. The goal is to search for unique signatures of Anderson localization in the presence of particle-particle interactions. Using typical experimental parameters, we show that the time scale for which the nonequilibrium dynamics of the interacting system begins to diverge from the noninteracting system exceeds the observation times up to now accessible in the experiment. We find evidence that the long-time evolution of the wave packet is characterized by (sub)diffusive spreading and a growing effective localization length, suggesting that interactions destroy Anderson localization.
The phenomenon of Anderson localization in expanding one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates is investigated by numerically solving the Gross-Pitaevskii equation with a random speckle potential. To this purpose, a quantum lattice Boltzmann (QLB) method is used, and compared with a standard Crank-Nicolson scheme. The QLB simulations show evidence of Anderson localization even for relatively low-energy condensates, with a healing length as large as one-tenth of the Thomas-Fermi length. Moreover, very long-time simulations, lasting up to 15 000 optical confinement periods, indicate that the Anderson localization degrades in time, although at a very slow pace. In particular, the inverse localization length is found to decay according to a t;{-1/3} law. This lends support to the idea that localized wave functions, although not strictly ground states, represent extremely long-lived metastable states of the expanding condensate.
We study numerically the long-time dynamics of a one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensate expanding in a speckle or impurity disorder potential. Using the mean-field Gross-Pitaevskii equation, we demonstrate subdiffusive spreading of the condensate for long times. We find that interaction-assisted hopping between normal modes leads to this subdiffusion. A possible (partial) reason why the root-mean-square (rms) width saturates in the experiment [Nature (London) 453, 891 (2008)] is provided. We suggest that observing both the participation length and the rms width of a condensate, rather than only the rms width, could provide a more complete description of the long-time behavior of ultracold atoms in disorder potentials. Our study confirms subdiffusive spreading in spatially continuous disordered interacting models and highlights new features which spatially discrete models do not possess.
We consider the phase coherent transport of a quasi-one-dimensional beam of Bose-Einstein condensed particles through a disordered potential of length LLL. Among the possible different types of flow we identified [T. Paul, P. Schlagheck, P. Leboeuf, and N. Pavloff, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 210602 (2007)], we focus here on the supersonic stationary regime where Anderson localization exists. We generalize the diffusion formalism of Dorokhov-Mello-Pereyra-Kumar to include interaction effects. It is shown that interactions modify the localization length and also introduce a length scale ${L}^{\ensuremath{\ast}}$ for the disordered region, above which most of the realizations of the random potential lead to time-dependent flows. A Fokker-Planck equation for the probability density of the transmission coefficient that takes this effect into account is introduced and solved. The theoretical predictions are verified numerically for different types of disordered potentials. Experimental scenarios for observing our predictions are discussed.
The Gross-Pitaevskii equation (GPE) plays an important role in the description of Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) at the mean-field level. The GPE belongs to the class of nonlinear Schr\"odinger equations which are known to feature dynamical instability and collapse for attractive nonlinear interactions. We show that the GPE with repulsive nonlinear interactions typical for BECs features chaotic wave dynamics. We find positive Lyapunov exponents for BECs expanding in periodic and aperiodic smooth external potentials, as well as disorder potentials. Our analysis demonstrates that wave chaos characterized by the exponential divergence of nearby initial wave functions is to be distinguished from the notion of nonintegrability of nonlinear wave equations. We discuss the implications of these observations for the limits of applicability of the GPE, the problem of Anderson localization, and the properties of the underlying many-body dynamics.
We study the time evolution of a Bose-Einstein condensate with a vortex on it when it is released from a trap and expands freely in a spatially uncorrelated disordered media. As customary in such cases, we perform the evolution over different disorder realizations and average over the disorder to obtain the quantities of interest. The propagation of noninteracting quantum systems in disordered media is strongly linked to Anderson localization which can be understood as formation of islands of constant phase due to coherent backscattering. We find that the vortex superfluid localizes in such media and, moreover, the vortex is resilient to disorder effects. This is a single-particle effect. In the presence of interactions, no matter how small they are, the vortex rapidly decays into phase discontinuities although localization is still present. The study of dispersion of a bosonic condensate with vorticity in a disordered media bears similarities with the stability of topological excitations in two-dimensional ppp-wave fermionic superfluids where the ground state is a Majorana mode that arises in the form of a vortex in the order parameter.
Expansion of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) is studied in the presence of a random potential. The expansion is controlled by a single parameter, (microtau(eff)/variant Planck's over 2pi), where micro is the chemical potential, prior to the release of the BEC from the trap, and tau(eff) is a transport relaxation time which characterizes the strength of the disorder. Repulsive interactions (nonlinearity) facilitate transport and can lead to diffusive spreading of the condensate which, in the absence of interactions, would have remained localized in the vicinity of its initial location.