Bosonic Josephson junctions provide a versatile platform for exploring quantum tunneling and coherence phenomena in ultracold atomic systems. While extensive research has examined the Josephson-junction dynamics in various double-well configurations, most studies have been limited to inertial reference frames. In the present work we pose the question how placing a Josephson junction in a noninertial reference frame would impact the quantum tunneling. Our findings demonstrate that accelerating a Josephson junction alters the tunneling dynamics. Conversely, tunneling behavior can be used to assess the acceleration of the system. By analyzing the changes in physical properties, we can assess the acceleration of the double well. We begin with the most simple noninertial frame: moving with constant acceleration. The tunneling time decreases exponentially as acceleration increases, making it effective for measuring larger accelerations. However, for smaller accelerations, accurate assessment requires accounting for many-body depletion, which decreases linearly as acceleration rises. Next we explore a more complex scenario where the acceleration is time dependent. In this case, the acceleration is mapped onto the tunneling time period and depletion, which again serve as predictors of acceleration. We also explore how the tunneling time and condensate depletion are affected by changes in the interparticle interaction. We go further by conducting a detailed analysis of the change in tunneling dynamics when the system deviates from constant or zero acceleration. The quantitative analysis shows that the depletion changes exponentially near constant acceleration, while around zero acceleration, the change follows a polynomial pattern. A comprehensive analysis of the effects of damped motion on the condensate depletion is performed as well. All in all, we quantify how the tunneling process and the mean-field and many-body properties evolve in a noninertial system of increasing complexity.
Bosonic Josephson junctions provide a versatile platform for exploring quantum tunneling and coherence phenomena in ultracold atomic systems. While extensive research has examined the Josephson-junction dynamics in various double-well configurations, most studies have been limited to inertial reference frames. In the present work we pose the question how placing a Josephson junction in a noninertial reference frame would impact the quantum tunneling. Our findings demonstrate that accelerating a Josephson junction alters the tunneling dynamics. Conversely, tunneling behavior can be used to assess the acceleration of the system. By analyzing the changes in physical properties, we can assess the acceleration of the double well. We begin with the most simple noninertial frame: moving with constant acceleration. The tunneling time decreases exponentially as acceleration increases, making it effective for measuring larger accelerations. However, for smaller accelerations, accurate assessment requires accounting for many-body depletion, which decreases linearly as acceleration rises. Next we explore a more complex scenario where the acceleration is time dependent. In this case, the acceleration is mapped onto the tunneling time period and depletion, which again serve as predictors of acceleration. We also explore how the tunneling time and condensate depletion are affected by changes in the interparticle interaction. We go further by conducting a detailed analysis of the change in tunneling dynamics when the system deviates from constant or zero acceleration. The quantitative analysis shows that the depletion changes exponentially near constant acceleration, while around zero acceleration, the change follows a polynomial pattern. A comprehensive analysis of the effects of damped motion on the condensate depletion is performed as well. All in all, we quantify how the tunneling process and the mean-field and many-body properties evolve in a noninertial system of increasing complexity.
Rotation and quantum tunneling are fundamental concepts in physics, and their interplay in the ultracold atomic systems is of particular interest. In this theoretical work, we explore how tunneling dynamics in a bosonic Josephson junction are modified when the system is placed in a rotating, non-inertial frame. We show that the tunneling dynamics of ultracold bosons in a two-dimensional double-well potential offer an alternative pathway for inferring the rotation frequency. Using the mean-field and many-body analyses, we demonstrate that rotation strongly modifies the tunneling time period as well as the momentum and angular momentum dynamics. When the rotation axis passes through the center of the double well, the observables show distinct dynamical responses with increasing rotation frequency, enabling the rotation frequency to be assessed from changes in the tunneling dynamics. When the potential is displaced from the rotation axis, the rotation induces asymmetric tunneling and partial self-trapping, allowing both the rotation frequency and the displacement to be inferred. We further show that for an off-centered double well, the tunneling dynamics exhibit a pronounced orientation dependence, enabling the orientation of the double well to be inferred from the observed dynamics. The many-body analysis further shows that the depletion dynamics are strongly influenced by rotation, providing an additional tool for assessing the rotation frequency. Finally, we study the effect of time-dependent rotation in which the double well is gradually set into motion in the laboratory frame and identify distinct dynamical signatures that depend sensitively on the switching time. Together, these results establish a comprehensive framework for inferring the rotation frequency, radial displacement, and orientation directly from the tunneling dynamics.
Abstract The out-of-equilibrium quantum dynamics of an interacting Bose gas trapped in a one-dimensional asymmetric double-well potential is studied by solving the many-body Schrödinger equation numerically accurately. We examine how the gradual loss of symmetry of the confining trap affects the macroscopic quantum tunneling dynamics of the system between the two wells. In an asymmetric double well, the two wells are not equivalent anymore, say, the left well is deeper than the right one. Accordingly, we analyze the dynamics by initially preparing the condensate in both the left and the right wells. The dynamics of the system is characterized by the time evolution of a few physical quantities of increasing many-body complexity, namely, the survival probability, depletion and fragmentation, and the many-particle position and momentum variances. In particular, we have examined the frequencies and amplitudes of the oscillations of the survival probabilities, the time scale for the development of fragmentation and its degree, and the growth and oscillatory behavior of the many-particle position and momentum variances. There is an overall suppression of the oscillations of the survival probabilities in an asymmetric double well, except for resonant values of asymmetry for which the one-body ground state energy in the right well matches with one of the one-body excited states in the left well, thereby resulting in resonantly enhanced tunneling from the right well ground state. Overall, depending on whether the condensate is initially prepared in the left or right well, the repulsive inter-atomic interactions affect the survival probabilities differently. For a sufficiently strong repulsive interaction, the system is found to become fragmented. The degree of fragmentation depends both on the asymmetry of the trap and the initial well in which the condensate is prepared in a non-trivial manner. Furthermore, we show that the phenomenon of resonantly enhanced tunneling can be accompanied by a large degree of fragmentation (depletion) for the strong (weak) interaction. The many-particle position and momentum variances follow the density oscillations of the system in the asymmetric double well and bears prominent signatures of the degree of depletion or fragmentation, depending on the strength of the interactions. These quantities further exhibit a fine structure signifying a breathing-mode oscillation. Finally, a universality of fragmentation for systems made of different numbers of particles but the same interaction parameter is also found and its dependence on the asymmetry is investigated. The phenomenon is robust despite the asymmetry of the junction and admits a macroscopically-large fragmented condensate characterized by a diverging many-particle position variance. This is as far as one can get from the dynamics of the density in the junction.
Tunneling in a many-body system appears as one of the novel implications of quantum physics, in which particles move in space under an otherwise classically-forbidden potential barrier. Here, we theoretically describe the quantum dynamics of the tunneling phenomenon of a few intricate bosonic clouds in a closed system of a two-dimensional symmetric double-well potential. We examine how the inclusion of the transverse direction, orthogonal to the junction of the double-well, can intervene in the tunneling dynamics of bosonic clouds. We use a well-known many-body numerical method, called the multiconfigurational time-dependent Hartree for bosons (MCTDHB) method. MCTDHB allows one to obtain accurately the time-dependent many-particle wavefunction of the bosons which in principle entails all the information of interest about the system under investigation. We analyze the tunneling dynamics by preparing the initial state of the bosonic clouds in the left well of the double-well either as the ground, longitudinally or transversely excited, or a vortex state. We unravel the detailed mechanism of the tunneling process by analyzing the evolution in time of the survival probability, depletion and fragmentation, and the many-particle position, momentum, and angular-momentum expectation values and their variances. As a general rule, all objects lose coherence while tunneling through the barrier and the states which include transverse excitations do so faster. In particular for the later states, we show that even when the transverse direction is seemingly frozen, prominent many-body dynamics in a two-dimensional bosonic Josephson junction occurs. Implications are briefly discussed.
Abstract The dynamics of bosons in Josephson junctions have drawn much attention where the bosons are initially condensed. When interacting bosons tunnel back and forth along the junction, depletion and, eventually, fragmentation develop. Here, we pose the question how do fragmented bosons tunnel in a bosonic Josephson junction? To this end, we exploit the transverse degree-of-freedom of the junction to encode initial fragmentation to the bosonic cloud. We find rich many-body dynamics, which includes the speed up of the collapse of density oscillations and slow down of the revival process, by analyzing the survival probability along the junction, fluctuations of particle positions across the junction, and the occupancy of the lowest single-particle states. It is found that a fully fragmented state significantly accelerates the revival process compared to the conventional Bose–Einstein condensate. To explain the underlying many-body mechanism, we show that the initial fragmentation in the transverse direction interferes with the development of fragmentation in time along the junction. The magnitude of this interference is quantified by the transition from a decrease of occupation to build up of occupation in the first excited single-particle state. The interference mechanism is a purely many-body effect that does not occur in the mean-field dynamics. All in all, we show that the interference of longitudinal and transversal fragmentations leads to new rules for macroscopic tunneling phenomena of interacting bosons in traps.
The quantum dynamics of a one-dimensional bosonic Josephson junction is studied by solving the time-dependent many-boson Schrödinger equation numerically exactly. Already for weak interparticle interactions and on short time scales, the commonly employed mean-field and many-body methods are found to deviate substantially from the exact dynamics. The system exhibits rich many-body dynamics such as enhanced tunneling and a novel equilibration phenomenon of the junction depending on the interaction, which is attributed to a quick loss of coherence.
The experimental achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation in cold alkali atomic gases in 1995 has started a period of fertile research at the intersection of atomic physics, quantum optics, and condensed matter. In this thesis, various tunneling effects in both bosonic and fermionic gases are investigated. The first part of this work deals with bosons in different Josephson-type experimental setups. After a brief general introduction we establish, in Chapter 2, a mapping between the phase and the Bogoliubov representation for the Josephson oscillations; in Chapter 3 we calculate the Josephson coupling constant for the condensate in the external Josephson effect. Chapter 4 deals with Josephson effects at the level of depletion: we describe in detail the oscillatory dynamics of the virtual quasiparticles. The next Chapter is a stability analysis for the formation of vortices in the Kibble-Zurek scenario. Finally, Chapter 6 contains a discussion on the time-evolution of the many-body states in the absence of tunneling. The second part of the thesis (Chapter 7- Chapter 9) deals with fermionic systems below the BCS critical temperature. The first two of these Chapters explore the possibility of driving transitions between hyperfine states with lasers. In Chapter 7 we show that these transitions could be used to investigate the coherence of the Cooper pairs. In Chapter 8 we imagine an internal Josephson experiment which uses a pair of lasers to drive transitions between two superfluids. Finally, in Chapter 9 we examine the properties of vortices formed in trapped Cooper-paired fermionic gases.