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Steady State and Dynamical Properties of an Impurity in a BEC in a Double Well Potential

J. Mumford

Published Sep 21, 2012• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The subject of this work is the theoretical analysis of the mean-field and many-body properties of an impurity in a Bose-Einstein condensate in a double well potential. By investigating the stationary mean-field properties we show that a critical value of the boson-impurity interaction energy, Wc, corresponds to a pitchfork bifurcation in the number difference variable in the mean-field theory. Comparing Wc to the value of W where the many-body ground state wave function begins to split shows a direct correlation signaling a connection between the many-body and mean-field theories. Investigation of the mean-field dynamics shows that chaos emerges for W > Wc in the vicinity of an unstable equilibrium point generated by the pitchfork bifurcation. An entropy is defined to quantify the chaos and compared to the entanglement entropy between the BEC and the impurity. The mean-field entropy shows a large gradient at Wc whereas the entanglement entropy shows no apparent features around the same value of W. An increase in correlations between nearest neighbour many-body eigenvalues is seen as W is increased providing evidence for ``quantum chaos''.

DOI
10.71548/23996

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The subject of this work is the theoretical analysis of the mean-field and many-body properties of an impurity in a Bose-Einstein condensate in a double well potential. By investigating the stationary mean-field properties we show that a critical value of the boson-impurity interaction energy, Wc, corresponds to a pitchfork bifurcation in the number difference variable in the mean-field theory. Comparing Wc to the value of W where the many-body ground state wave function begins to split shows a direct correlation signaling a connection between the many-body and mean-field theories. Investigation of the mean-field dynamics shows that chaos emerges for W > Wc in the vicinity of an unstable equilibrium point generated by the pitchfork bifurcation. An entropy is defined to quantify the chaos and compared to the entanglement entropy between the BEC and the impurity. The mean-field entropy shows a large gradient at Wc whereas the entanglement entropy shows no apparent features around the same value of W. An increase in correlations between nearest neighbour many-body eigenvalues is seen as W is increased providing evidence for ``quantum chaos''.
We compare and contrast the mean-field and many-body properties of a Bose-Einstein condensate trapped in a double-well potential with a single impurity atom. The mean-field solutions display a rich structure of bifurcations, as parameters such as the boson-impurity interaction strength and the tilt between the two wells are varied. In particular, we study a pitchfork bifurcation in the lowest mean-field stationary solution, which occurs when the boson-impurity interaction exceeds a critical magnitude. This bifurcation, which is present for both repulsive and attractive boson-impurity interactions, corresponds to the spontaneous formation of an imbalance in the number of particles between the two wells. If the boson-impurity interaction is large, the bifurcation is associated with the onset of a Schr\"odinger-cat state in the many-body ground state. We calculate the coherence and number fluctuations between the two wells, and also the entanglement entropy between the bosons and the impurity. We find that the coherence can be greatly enhanced at the bifurcation.
We study a model describing NNN identical bosonic atoms trapped in a double-well potential together with a single-impurity atom, comparing and contrasting it throughout with the Dicke model. As the boson-impurity coupling strength is varied, there is a symmetry-breaking pitchfork bifurcation which is analogous to the quantum phase transition occurring in the Dicke model. Through stability analysis around the bifurcation point, we show that the critical value of the coupling strength has the same dependence on the parameters as the critical coupling value in the Dicke model. We also show that, like the Dicke model, the mean-field dynamics goes from being regular to chaotic above the bifurcation and macroscopic excitations of the bosons are observed. Although the boson-impurity system behaves like a poor man's version of the Dicke model, we demonstrate a self-trapping phenomenon which thus far has not been discussed in the realm of the Dicke model.
We consider a Bose-Einstein condensate with an attractive particle interaction in a symmetric double well potential. It is known that in the mean field description a symmetric solution for the condensate wavefunction becomes unstable when the interactions are stronger than some critical value. We analyze the system around the critical point applying the number conserving Bogoliubov theory and exact diagonalization of the two mode hamiltonian. It allows for estimation of the density fluctuations in the system. Fluctuations of the order parameter, which is defined in the mean field description, turn out to be maximal at the critical point.
This thesis explores the effects singularities have on stationary and dynamical properties of many-body quantum systems. In papers I and II we find that the ground state suffers a Z2 symmetry breaking phase transition (PT) when a single impurity is added to a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in a double well (bosonic Josephson junction). The PT occurs for a certain value of the BEC-impurity interaction energy, Λc . A result of the PT is the mean-field dynamics undergo chaotic motion in phase space once the symmetry is broken. We determine the critical scaling exponents that characterize the divergence of the correlation length and fidelity susceptibility at the PT, finding that the BEC-impurity system belongs to the same universality class as the Dicke and Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick models (which also describe symmetry breaking PTs in systems of bosons). In paper III we study the dynamics of a generic two-mode quantum field following a quench where one of the terms in the Hamiltonian is flashed on and off. This model is relevant to BECs in double wells as well as other simple many-particle systems found in quantum optics and optomechanics. We find that when plotted in Fock-space plus time, the semiclassical wave function develops prominent cusp-shaped structures after the quench. These structures are singular in the classical limit and we identify them as catastrophes (as described by the Thom-Arnold catastrophe theory) and show that they arise from the coalescence of classical (mean-field) trajectories in a path integral description. Furthermore, close to the cusp the wave function obeys a remarkable set of scaling relations signifying these structures as examples of universality in quantum dynamics. Within the cusp we find a network of vortex-antivortex pairs which are phase singularities caused by interference. When the mean-field Hamiltonian displays a Z2 symmetry breaking PT modelled by the Landau theory of PTs we calculate scaling exponents describing how the separation distance between the members of each pair diverges as the PT is approached. We also find that the cusp becomes infinitely stretched out at the PT due to critical slowing down. In paper IV we investigate in greater detail the morphology of the vortex network found within cusp catastrophes in many-body wave functions following a quench. In contrast to the cusp catastrophes studied so far in the literature, these structures live in Fock space which is fundamentally granular. As such, these cusps represent a new iii type of catastrophe, which we term a ‘quantum catastrophe’. The granularity of Fock space introduces a new length scale, the quantum length lq = N −1 which effectively removes the vortex cores. Nevertheless, a subset of the vortices persist as phase singularities as can be shown by integrating the phase of the wave function around circuits in Fock-space plus time. Whether or not the vortices survive in a quantum catastrophe is governed by the separation of the vortex-antivortex pairs lv ∝ N −3/4 in comparison to lq , i.e. they survive if lv lq . When particle numbers are reached such that lq ≈ lv the vortices annihilate in pairs.
We demonstrate that an ultracold many-body bosonic ensemble confined in a one-dimensional double-well potential can exhibit chaotic dynamics due to the presence of a single impurity. The nonequilibrium dynamics is triggered by a quench of the impurity-Bose interaction and is illustrated via the evolution of the population imbalance for the bosons between the two wells. While the increase of the postquench interaction strength always facilitates the irregular motion for the bosonic population imbalance, it becomes regular again when the impurity is initially populated in the highly excited states. Such an integrability to chaos (ITC) transition is fully captured by the transient dynamics of the corresponding linear entanglement entropy, whose infinite-time-averaged value additionally characterizes the edge of the chaos and implies the existence of an effective Bose-Bose attraction induced by the impurity. To elucidate the physical origin for the observed ITC transition, we perform a detailed spectral analysis for the mixture with respect to both the energy spectrum as well as the eigenstates. Specifically, two distinguished spectral behaviors upon a variation of the interspecies interaction strength are observed. While the avoided level crossings take place in the low-energy spectrum, the energy levels in the high-energy spectrum possess a bandlike structure and are equidistant within each band. This leads to a significant delocalization of the low-lying eigenvectors, which, in turn, accounts for the chaotic nature of the bosonic dynamics. By contrast, those highly excited states bear a high resemblance to the noninteracting integrable basis, which explains the recovery of the integrability for the bosonic species. Finally, we discuss the induced Bose-Bose attraction as well as its impact on the bosonic dynamics.
We present a quantum phase-space model of the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in a double-well potential. In a quantum two-mode approximation we examine the eigenvectors and eigenvalues and find that the energy correlation diagram indicates a transition from a delocalized to a fragmented regime. Phase-space information is extracted from the stationary quantum states using the Husimi distribution function. We show that the mean-field phase-space characteristics of a nonrigid physical pendulum arises from the exact quantum states, and that only 4--8 particles per well are needed to reach the semiclassical limit. For a driven double-well BEC, we show that the classical chaotic dynamics is manifest in the dynamics of the quantum states. Phase-space analogy also suggests that a $\ensuremath{\pi}$ phase-displaced wave packet put on the unstable fixed point on a separatrix bifurcates to create a superposition of two pendulum rotor states---a macroscopic superposition state of BEC. We show that the choice of initial barrier height and ramping, following a $\ensuremath{\pi}$ phase imprinting on the condensate, can be used to generate controlled entangled number states with tunable extremity and sharpness.