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The Journal of Physical Chemistry A

Symmetry-Broken Many-Body Excited States of the Gaseous Atomic Double-Well Bose–Einstein Condensate

David J. Masiello, William P. Reinhardt

Published Feb 20, 2019• 5 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Macroscopic, many-body self-trapped and quantum superposition states of the gaseous double-well Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) are investigated within the context of a multiconfigurational bosonic self-consistent field theory based upon underlying spatially symmetry-broken one-body wave functions. To aid in the interpretation of our results, an approximate model is constructed in the extreme Fock state limit, in which self-trapped and superposition states emerge in the many-body spectrum, striking a delicate balance between the degree of symmetry breaking, the effects of the condensate's mean field, and that of atomic correlation. It is found, in both the model and full theory, that the superposition state lies energetically below its related self-trapped counterpart even when many configurations are involved. Noticeably different spatial density profiles are associated with each type of excited state, thus providing a rigorous justification for approximate descriptions of high-lying excited states of the BEC.

DOI
10.1021/acs.jpca.8b10583

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Macroscopic, many-body self-trapped and quantum superposition states of the gaseous double-well Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) are investigated within the context of a multiconfigurational bosonic self-consistent field theory based upon underlying spatially symmetry-broken one-body wave functions. To aid in the interpretation of our results, an approximate model is constructed in the extreme Fock state limit, in which self-trapped and superposition states emerge in the many-body spectrum, striking a delicate balance between the degree of symmetry breaking, the effects of the condensate's mean field, and that of atomic correlation. It is found, in both the model and full theory, that the superposition state lies energetically below its related self-trapped counterpart even when many configurations are involved. Noticeably different spatial density profiles are associated with each type of excited state, thus providing a rigorous justification for approximate descriptions of high-lying excited states of the BEC.
The many-body structure of high-lying excited states, including macroscopic quantum superpositions, of the gaseous double-well BEC is presented within the context of a multiconfigurational bosonic self-consistent field theory based upon underlying symmetry-broken one-body wave functions. To better understand our initial results, a model is constructed in the extreme Fock state limit, in which macroscopic quantum self-trapped and superposition states emerge in the many-body spectrum, striking a delicate balance between the degree of symmetry breaking, the effects of the condensate's mean field, and that of atomic correlation. It is found that, in general, the superposition state lies energetically below its related self-trapped counterpart. Furthermore, noticeably different spatial density profiles are associated with each type of excited state.
Multiconfigurational Hartree-Fock theory is presented and implemented in an investigation of the fragmentation of a Bose-Einstein condensate made of identical bosonic atoms in a double-well potential at zero temperature. The approach builds in the effects of the condensate mean field and of atomic correlations by describing generalized many-body states that are composed of multiple configurations which incorporate atomic interactions. Nonlinear and linear optimization is utilized in conjunction with the variational and Hylleraas-Undheim theorems to find the optimal ground and excited states of the interacting system. The resulting energy spectrum and associated eigenstates are presented as a function of double-well barrier height. Delocalized and localized single configurational states are found in the extreme limits of the simple and fragmented condensate ground states, while multiconfigurational states and macroscopic quantum superposition states are revealed throughout the full extent of barrier heights. Comparison is made to existing theories that either neglect mean field or correlation effects and it is found that contributions from both interactions are essential in order to obtain a robust microscopic understanding of the condensate's atomic structure throughout the fragmentation process.
We develop the Fock-space many-body quantum approach for large number of bosons, when the bosons occupy significantly only few modes. The approach is based on an analogy with the dynamics of a single particle of either positive or negative mass in a quantum potential, where the inverse number of bosons plays the role of Planck constant. As application of the method we consider the Bose-Einstein condensate in a double-well trap. The ground state of positive mass particle corresponds to the mean-field fixed point of lower energy, while that of negative mass to the excited fixed point. In the case of attractive BEC above the threshold for symmetry breaking, the ground state is a cat state and we relate this fact to the double-well shape of the quantum potential for the positive mass quantum particle. The tunneling energy splitting between the local Fock states of the cat state is shown to be extremely small for the nonlinearity parameter just above the critical value and exponentially decreasing with the number of atoms. In the repulsive case, the phase locked (πππ-phase) macroscopic quantum self-trapping of BEC is related to the double-well structure of the potential for the negative mass quantum particle. We also analyze the running phase macroscopic quantum self-trapping state and show that it is subject to quantum collapses and revivals. Moreover, the quantum dynamics just before the first collapse of the running phase shows exponential growth of dispersion of the quantum phase distribution which may explain the growth of the phase fluctuations seen in the experiment on the macroscopic quantum self-trapping.
We study the Bose-Einstein condensate in the MIT double-well trap. We calculate the ground-state density profile of 23{}^{23}23Na atoms and the Bogoliubov spectrum of the elementary excitations as a function of the strength of the double-well barrier. In particular, we analyze the behavior of quantum-mechanical collective excitations. Finally, we discuss the observability criteria for macroscopic quantum tunneling and macroscopic quantum self-trapping.
Based on Bogoliubov's truncated Hamiltonian H B for a weakly interacting Bose system, and adding a U(1) symmetry breaking term V 1/2 (λ a 0 +λ * a 0 + ) to H B , we show by using the coherent state theory and the mean-field approximation rather than the c-number approximations, that the Bose–Einstein condensation(BEC) occurs if and only if the U(1) symmetry of the system is spontaneously broken. The real ground state energy and the justification of the Bogoliubov c-number substitution are given by solving the Schrödinger eigenvalue equation and using the self-consistent condition.
We consider a Bose-Einstein condensate in a double-well potential undergoing a dynamical transition from the regime of Josephson oscillations to the regime of self-trapping. We analyze the statistical properties of the ground state (or the highest excited state) of the Hamiltonian in these two regimes for attractive (repulsive) interactions. We demonstrate that it is impossible to describe the transition within the mean-field theory. In contrast, the transition proceeds through a strongly correlated delocalized state, with large quantum fluctuations, and spontaneous breaking of the symmetry.