We study the dynamics of one-dimensional bosons trapped in a box potential, in the presence of a barrier creating a tunable weak-link, thus realizing a one dimensional Bose Josephson junction. By varying the initial population imbalance and the barrier height we evidence different dynamical regimes. In particular we show that at large barriers a two mode model captures accurately the dynamics, while for low barriers the dynamics involves dispersive shock waves and solitons. We study a quench protocol that can be readily implemented in experiments and show that self-trapping resonances can occur. This phenomenon can be understood qualitatively within the two-mode model.
We study the dynamics of one-dimensional bosons trapped in a box potential, in the presence of a barrier creating a tunable weak-link, thus realizing a one dimensional Bose Josephson junction. By varying the initial population imbalance and the barrier height we evidence different dynamical regimes. In particular we show that at large barriers a two mode model captures accurately the dynamics, while for low barriers the dynamics involves dispersive shock waves and solitons. We study a quench protocol that can be readily implemented in experiments and show that self-trapping resonances can occur. This phenomenon can be understood qualitatively within the two-mode model.
We study the dynamics of one-dimensional bosons trapped in a box potential in the presence of a barrier creating a tunable weak link, thus realizing a one-dimensional Bose-Josephson junction. By varying the initial population imbalance and the barrier height, we evidence different dynamical regimes. In particular, we show that at large barriers a two-mode model captures accurately the dynamics, while for low barriers the dynamics involves dispersive shock waves and solitons. We study a quench protocol that can be readily implemented in experiments and show that self-trapping resonances can occur. This phenomenon can be understood qualitatively within the two-mode model.
In this thesis, I present the first experimental implementation of a Josephson junction for Bose-Einstein condensates. The weak link between two BECs constitutes the nonlinear generalization of the well known Josephson junction of weakly-coupled superconductors that are separated by a thin insulating barrier. In our experiment, the required overlap of two macroscopic wavefunctions is provided by loading a BEC into an optical double well potential. It is realized by a superposition of a one-dimensional optical lattice with a focused laser beam optical dipole trap. The tunneling dynamics between the two potential wells exhibits two distinct dynamical regimes. For small initial population imbalances of the two wells we observe nearly sinusoidal Josephson tunneling oscillations, which are characterized by an oscillating population and relative phase. The situation changes drastically, if the initial population imbalance is chosen above a critical value. In this case, resonant tunneling between the two wells is prohibited because the difference between the on-site particle interaction energies in the two wells exceeds the tunneling energy splitting. As a consequence, the atomic distribution becomes self-locked and the relative phase evolves unbound in time. This regime of prohibited tunneling, which has no analogon in superconducting Josephson junctions, is called “macroscopic quantum self-trapping”.
Abstract We provide a complete study of the phase diagram characterising the distinct dynamical regimes emerging in a three-dimensional Josephson junction in an ultracold quantum gas. Considering trapped ultracold superfluids separated into two reservoirs by a barrier of variable height and width, we analyse the population imbalance dynamics following a variable initial population mismatch. We demonstrate that as the chemical potential difference is increased, the system transitions from Josephson plasma oscillations to either a dissipative (in the limit of low and narrow barriers) or a self-trapped regime (for large and wider barriers), with a crossover between the dissipative and the self-trapping regimes which we explore and characterize for the first time. This work, which extends beyond the validity of the standard two-mode model, connects the role of the barrier width, vortex rings and associated acoustic emission with different regimes of the superfluid dynamics across the junction, establishing a framework for its experimental observation, which is found to be within current experimental reach.
We study Josephson oscillations of two strongly correlated one-dimensional bosonic clouds separated by a localized barrier. Using a quantum-Langevin approach and the exact Tonks-Girardeau solution in the impenetrable-boson limit, we determine the dynamical evolution of the particle-number imbalance, displaying an effective damping of the Josephson oscillations which depends on barrier height, interaction strength and temperature. We show that the damping originates from the quantum and thermal fluctuations intrinsically present in the strongly correlated gas. Thanks to the density-phase duality of the model, the same results apply to particle-current oscillations in a one-dimensional ring where a weak barrier couples different angular momentum states. In the latter case, depending on interaction strength and temperature, we identify various dynamical regimes where the current oscillates, is self-trapped or decays with time and involve phase slips of thermal or quantum nature. We finally link the current oscillations in the large barrier limit to quantum shock waves.
Understanding how coherent quantum dynamics give way to correlation-dominated behavior in low-dimensional systems remains a central challenge in quantum many-body physics. Here, we investigate a one-dimensional Bose-Josephson junction confined in a box trap using the multiconfigurational time-dependent Hartree method for bosons (MCTDHB). By varying the interaction strength and initial population imbalance, we identify distinct dynamical regimes governed by the competition between coherence and correlation-induced fragmentation. Weak interactions support coherent Josephson oscillations, whereas increasing imbalance leads to damping. At intermediate interaction strength, varying only the initial imbalance induces a crossover from nearly pure coherent oscillations to many-body dephasing with collapse-and-revival dynamics, and ultimately to equilibration accompanied by strong fragmentation and the saturation of many-body observables. In the strongly interacting regime, the system enters a dynamical freezing regime characterized by pronounced fragmentation, well-separated particle-resolved density peaks, and strongly suppressed tunneling. A systematic comparison with the Bose-Hubbard model reveals excellent agreement in the weakly interacting regime, while progressively larger deviations emerge as higher-orbital occupations beyond the two-mode approximation become significant. These results provide a unified picture of the emergence and competition of coherence, many-body dephasing, equilibration, and dynamical freezing, while delineating the regime of validity of the Bose-Hubbard description.