We study the spontaneous symmetry breaking of a superfluid Bose—Fermi mixture in a two-dimensional double-well potential. The mixture is described by a set of coupled Gross—Pitaevskii equations. The symmetry breaking phenomenon is demonstrated in the two-dimensional double-well potential in the mixture. The results are summarized in the phase diagrams of the mixture particle numbers, which are divided into symmetric and asymmetric regions by the asymmetry ratios. The dynamical pictures of the spontaneous symmetry breaking induced by a gradual transformation of the single-well potential into a double-well one are also illustrated. The properties of the quantum degenerate mixture are explored using the realistic parameters for a 40 K− 87 Rb system.
We study the spontaneous symmetry breaking of a superfluid Bose—Fermi mixture in a two-dimensional double-well potential. The mixture is described by a set of coupled Gross—Pitaevskii equations. The symmetry breaking phenomenon is demonstrated in the two-dimensional double-well potential in the mixture. The results are summarized in the phase diagrams of the mixture particle numbers, which are divided into symmetric and asymmetric regions by the asymmetry ratios. The dynamical pictures of the spontaneous symmetry breaking induced by a gradual transformation of the single-well potential into a double-well one are also illustrated. The properties of the quantum degenerate mixture are explored using the realistic parameters for a 40 K− 87 Rb system.
We study the spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) of a superfluid Bose-Fermi (BF) mixture in a double-well potential (DWP). The mixture is described by the Gross-Pitaevskii equation (GPE) for the bosons, coupled to an equation for the order parameter of the Fermi superfluid, which is derived from the respective density functional in the unitarity limit (a similar model applies to the BCS regime, too). Straightforward SSB in the degenerate Fermi gas loaded into a DWP is impossible, as it requires an attractive self-interaction, and the intrinsic nonlinearity in the Fermi gas is repulsive. Nonetheless, we demonstrate that the symmetry breaking is possible in the mixture with attraction between fermions and bosons, like 40K and 87Rb. Numerical results are represented by dependencies of asymmetry parameters for both components on particle numbers of the mixture, NF and NB, and by phase diagrams in the (NF,NB) plane, which displays regions of symmetric and asymmetric ground states. The dynamical picture of the SSB, induced by a gradual transformation of the single-well potential into the DWP, is reported too. An analytical approximation is proposed for the case when the GPE for the boson wave function may be treated by means of the Thomas-Fermi (TF) approximation. Under a special linear relationship between NF and NB, the TF approximation allows us to reduce the model to a single equation for the fermionic function, which includes competing repulsive and attractive nonlinear terms. The latter one directly displays the mechanism of the generation of the effective attraction in the Fermi superfluid, mediated by the bosonic component of the mixture.
We analyze the spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) induced by one specific component of a linearly coupled binary Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). The model is based on linearly coupled Schrödinger equations with cubic nonlinearity and with a double-well (DW) potential acting on only one of the atomic components. By numerical simulations, symmetric and asymmetric ground-states were obtained, and an induced asymmetry in the partner field was observed. In this sense, we properly demonstrated that the linear coupling mixing the two-field component (Rabi coupling) promotes the (in)balance between atomic species, as well as the appearance of the Josephson and SSB phases.
We study numerically mixing-demixing and spontaneous symmetry breaking in Bose-Fermi mixtures in spherically-symmetric and quasi-one-dimensional traps while the intra-species Bose and Fermi interactions are varied from weak-coupling to strong-coupling limits. The usual treatment of a Bose-Fermi mixture relies on weak-coupling Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) and density-functional (DF) Lagrangians, often including the more realistic perturbative Lee-Huang-Yang (LHY) corrections. We suggest analytic non-perturbative beyond-mean-field Bose and Fermi Lagrangians valid along the crossover from weak- to strong-coupling limits of intra-species interactions consistent with the LHY corrections and the strong-coupling (unitarity) limit for small and large scattering lengths ∣a∣, respectively, and use these to study the Bose-Fermi mixture. The LHY correction is appropriate for medium to weak atomic interactions and diverges for stronger interactions (large scattering length ∣a∣), whereas the present beyond-mean-field Lagrangian is finite in the unitarity limit (∣a∣→∞). We illustrate our results using the Bose-Fermi 7Li-6Li mixture under a spherically-symmetric and a quasi-one-dimensional trap. The results obtained with the present model for density distribution of the Bose-Fermi mixture along the crossover could be qualitatively different from the usual GP-DF Lagrangian with or without LHY corrections. Specifically, we identified spontaneous symmetry breaking and demixing in the present model not found in the usual model with the same values of the parameters.
We report results of an analysis of the spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) in a basic (actually, simplest) model that is capable of producing the SSB phenomenology in a one-dimensional setting. It is based on the Gross-Pitaevskii-nonlinear Schrödinger equation with the cubic self-attractive term and a double-well potential built as an infinitely deep potential box split by a narrow (δ functional) barrier. The barrier's strength ɛ is the single free parameter of the scaled form of the model. It may be implemented in atomic Bose-Einstein condensates and nonlinear optics. The SSB bifurcation of the symmetric ground state (g.s.) is predicted analytically in two limit cases, viz., for deep or weak splitting of the potential box by the barrier (ɛ≫1 or ɛ≪1, respectively). For the generic case, a variational approximation (VA) is elaborated. The analytical findings are presented along with systematic numerical results. The stability of stationary states is studied through the calculation of eigenvalues for small perturbations and by means of direct simulations. The g.s. always undergoes the SSB bifurcation of the supercritical type, as predicted by the VA at moderate values of ɛ, although the VA fails at small ɛ, due to inapplicability of the underlying ansatz in that case. However, the latter case is correctly treated by the approximation based on a soliton ansatz. On top of the g.s., the first and second excited states are studied too. The antisymmetric mode (the first excited state) is destabilized at a critical value of its norm. The second excited state undergoes SSB bifurcation, like the g.s., but, unlike it, the bifurcation produces an unstable asymmetric mode. All unstable modes tend to spontaneously reshape into the asymmetric g.s.
We propose a model of a nonlinear double-well potential (NDWP), alias a double-well pseudopotential, with the objective to study an alternative implementation of the spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) in Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) and optical media, under the action of a potential with two symmetric minima. In the limit case when the NDWP structure is induced by the local nonlinearity coefficient represented by a set of two delta functions, a fully analytical solution is obtained for symmetric, antisymmetric, and asymmetric states. In this solvable model, the SSB bifurcation has a fully subcritical character. Numerical analysis, based on both direct simulations and computation of stability eigenvalues, demonstrates that, while the symmetric states are stable up to the SSB bifurcation point, both symmetric and emerging asymmetric states, as well as all antisymmetric ones, are unstable in the model with the delta functions. In the general model with a finite width of the nonlinear-potential wells, the asymmetric states quickly become stable, simultaneously with the switch of the SSB bifurcation from the subcritical to supercritical type. Antisymmetric solutions may also get stabilized in the NDWP structure of the general type, which gives rise to a bistability between them and asymmetric states. The symmetric states require a finite norm for their existence, an explanation to which is given. A full diagram for the existence and stability of the trapped states in the model is produced. Experimental observation of the predicted effects should be possible in BEC formed by several hundred atoms.
In this paper, we study the interaction-modulated tunneling dynamics of a Bose-Fermi superfluid mixture, where a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) with weak repulsive interaction is confined in a symmetric deep double-well potential and an equally populated two-component Fermi gas in a harmonic potential symmetrically is positioned in the center of the double-well potential. The tunneling between the two wells is modulated by fermions trapped in a harmonic potential. When the temperature is adequately low and the bosonic particle number is adequately large, we can employ the mean-field theory to describe the evolution of the BEC in the double-well potential through the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation. For the Fermi gas in the harmonic potential trap, we consider the case where the inter-fermion interaction is tuned on the deep Bose-Einstein condensate of the inter-fermion Feshbach resonance, where two fermions of spin-up and spin-down form a two-body bound state. Within the regime, the Fermi gas is well described by a condensate of these fermionic dimers, and hence can be simulated as well by a Gross-Pitaevskii equation of dimers. The inter-species interactions couple the dynamics of the two species, which results in interesting features in the tunneling oscillations. The dynamic equations of the BEC in the double-well potential is described by a two-mode approximation. Coupling it with time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation of the harmonically potential trapped molecular BEC, we numerically investigate the dynamical evolution of the Boson-Fermi hybrid system under different initial conditions. It is found that the interaction among fermions in a harmonic potential leads to strong non-linearity in the oscillations of the bosons in the double-well potential and enriches the tunneling dynamics of the bosons. Especially, it strengthens macroscopic quantum self-trapping. And the macroscopic quantum self-trapping can be expressed in three forms: the phase tends to be negative and monotonically decreases with time, the phase evolves with time, and the phase tends to be positive and increases monotonically with time. This means that it is possible the tunneling dynamics of the BEC in double-well potential is adjustable. Our results can be verified experimentally in a Bose-Fermi superfluid mixture by varying different interaction parameters via Feshbach resonance and confinement-induced resonance.