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Physical Review A

Dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates in double-well potentials

M. Jääskeläinen, P. Meystre

Published Apr 11, 2005• 47 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We study the dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates in symmetric double-well potentials following a sudden change of the potential from the Mott-insulator to the superfluid regime. We introduce a continuum approximation that maps that problem onto the wave-packet dynamics of a particle in an anharmonic effective potential. For repulsive two-body interactions the visibility of interference fringes that result from the superposition of the two condensates following a stage of ballistic expansion exhibits a collapse of coherent oscillations onto a background value whose magnitude depends on the amount of squeezing of the initial state. Strong attractive interactions are found to stabilize the relative number dynamics. We visualize the dynamics of the system in phase space using a quasiprobability distribution that allows for an intuitive interpretation of the various types of dynamics.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.71.043603

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The quantum nonlinear dynamics of an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in a double-well potential is studied. Using a double-well single-particle potential model system and a two-mode approximation, results showed that the coherent oscillations resulting from tunneling are suppressed when the number of atoms is greater than a critical value. The spectrum if nonresonant light scattered by the condensate to include an asymmetric double peak structure with peak separation and relative heights determined by the number of atoms in the condensate and the interaction strength for hard sphere collisions.
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We consider the quantum dynamics of a neutral atom Bose- Einstein condensate in a double-well potential, including hard-sphere particle interactions. Using a mean-field factorization we show that the coherent oscillations due to tunnelling are suppressed when the number of atoms exceeds a critical value. An exact quantum solution, in a two-mode approximation, shows that the mean-field solution is modulated by a quantum collapse and revival sequence. Chaotic dynamics results when the potential is modulated.