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Journal of Physics Conference Series

Tunneling and transport dynamics of trapped Bose–Einstein condensates

Valentin O. Nesterenko, A N Novikov, E. Suraud, J. Kvasil

Published Nov 1, 2010• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

We present particular examples of tunneling and transport dynamics of Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) in a two-well trap: Josephson oscillations (JO), macroscopic quantum self-trapping (MQST) and complete adiabatic transport. Being quite general, these dynamical regimes have close analogies with Josephson junctions in superconductors and transport problems in nanosystems. The calculations are performed within the time-dependent mean-field prescription within (transport) and beyond (JO and MQST) two-mode approximation. For the transport a universal adiabatic population transfer scheme is proposed, allowing a robust and complete transport even under strong nonlinear effects.

DOI
10.1088/1742-6596/248/1/012033

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We study the coherent atomic tunneling between two zero-temperature Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) confined in a double-well magnetic trap. Two Gross-Pitaevskii equations for the self-interacting BEC amplitudes, coupled by a transfer matrix element, describe the dynamics in terms of the interwell phase difference and population imbalance. In addition to the anharmonic generalization of the familiar ac Josephson effect and plasma oscillations occurring in superconductor junctions, the nonlinear BEC tunneling dynamics sustains a self-maintained population imbalance: a novel ``macroscopic quantum self-trapping'' effect.
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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”.