We numerically demonstrate and characterize the emergence of distinct dynamical regimes of a finite-temperature bosonic superfluid in an elongated Josephson junction generated by a thin Gaussian barrier over the entire temperature range where a well-formed condensate can be clearly identified. Although the dissipation arising from the coupling of the superfluid to the dynamical thermal cloud increases with increasing temperature as expected, the importance of this mechanism is found to depend on two physical parameters associated (i) with the initial chemical potential difference, compared to some characteristic value, and (ii) the ratio of the thermal energy to the barrier amplitude. The former determines whether the superfluid Josephson dynamics are dominated by gradually damped plasmalike oscillations (for relatively small initial population imbalances), or whether dissipation at early times is instead dominated by vortex- and sound-induced dissipation (for larger initial imbalances). The latter defines the effect of the thermal cloud on the condensate dynamics, with a reversal of roles, i.e., the condensate being driven by the oscillating thermal cloud, being observed when the thermal particles acquire enough energy to overcome the barrier. Our findings are within current experimental reach in ultracold superfluid junctions.
We numerically demonstrate and characterize the emergence of distinct dynamical regimes of a finite-temperature bosonic superfluid in an elongated Josephson junction generated by a thin Gaussian barrier over the entire temperature range where a well-formed condensate can be clearly identified. Although the dissipation arising from the coupling of the superfluid to the dynamical thermal cloud increases with increasing temperature as expected, the importance of this mechanism is found to depend on two physical parameters associated (i) with the initial chemical potential difference, compared to some characteristic value, and (ii) the ratio of the thermal energy to the barrier amplitude. The former determines whether the superfluid Josephson dynamics are dominated by gradually damped plasmalike oscillations (for relatively small initial population imbalances), or whether dissipation at early times is instead dominated by vortex- and sound-induced dissipation (for larger initial imbalances). The latter defines the effect of the thermal cloud on the condensate dynamics, with a reversal of roles, i.e., the condensate being driven by the oscillating thermal cloud, being observed when the thermal particles acquire enough energy to overcome the barrier. Our findings are within current experimental reach in ultracold superfluid junctions.
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 investigate how collisional interactions between the condensate and the thermal cloud influence the distinct dynamical regimes (Josephson plasma, phase-slip-induced dissipative regime and macroscopic quantum self-trapping) emerging in ultracold atomic Josephson junctions at non-zero subcritical temperatures. Specifically, we discuss how the self-consistent dynamical inclusion of collisional processes facilitating the exchange of particles between the condensate and the thermal cloud impacts both the condensate and the thermal currents, demonstrating that their relative importance depends on the system's dynamical regime. Our study is performed within the full context of the Zaremba-Nikuni-Griffin (ZNG) formalism, which couples a dissipative Gross-Pitaevskii equation for the condensate dynamics to a quantum Boltzmann equation with collisional terms for the thermal cloud. In the Josephson plasma oscillation and vortex-induced dissipative regimes, collisions markedly alter dynamics at intermediate-to-high temperatures, amplifying damping in the condensate imbalance mode and inducing measurable frequency shifts. In the self-trapping regime, collisions destabilize the system even at low temperatures, prompting a transition to Josephson-like dynamics on a temperature-dependent timescale. Our results show the interplay between coherence, dissipation, and thermal effects in a Bose-Einstein condensate at finite temperature, providing a framework for tailoring Josephson junction dynamics in experimentally accessible regimes.
We investigate the dynamics of bosonic atoms in elongated Josephson junctions. We find that these systems are characterized by an intrinsic coupling between the Josephson mode of macroscopic quantum tunneling and the sound modes. This coupling of Josephson and sound modes gives rise to a damped and stochastic Langevin dynamics for the Josephson degree of freedom. From a microscopic Lagrangian, we deduce and investigate the damping coefficient and the stochastic noise, which includes thermal and quantum fluctuations. Finally, we study the time evolution of relative-phase and population-imbalance fluctuations of the Josephson mode and their oscillating thermalization to equilibrium.