This project studies the system formed by two coupled Bose-Einstein condensates, also known as the bosonic Josephson junction. A double-well model is used to trap the ultracold atoms, and special attention is paid to the understudied case of asymmetric wells. A brief introduction to Bose- Einstein condensates and their relationship to optical lattices is provided. The Bose-Hubbard model restricted to two wells is also described, and a large number of particles is considered, allowing for the use of the semiclassical mean-field approximation. By introducing anisotropy into this system, a symmetry breaking in phase space is found, which can be interpreted as a dissipative process emerging in semiclassical dynamics, although the total particle flux is conserved. Additionally, this same system is studied using the spin formalism considering a large number of bosons. Under this approach, the anisotropy affects the system in the same way as a Zeeman effect, where the dimer behaves as an N/2 spin model in the presence of an external magnetic field proportional to ∆. The expectation values of the spin components and their variances are studied, especially for ˆSz , which by definition represents the difference of particles for both wells and depends strongly on the anisotropy. The quantum fluctuations for ˆSx, ˆSy, and ˆSz decrease with increasing particle number, particularly as ∝ 1/N , suggesting that ˆSx, ˆSy, and ˆSz becomes more quantum localized near the semiclassical limit.
This project studies the system formed by two coupled Bose-Einstein condensates, also known as the bosonic Josephson junction. A double-well model is used to trap the ultracold atoms, and special attention is paid to the understudied case of asymmetric wells. A brief introduction to Bose- Einstein condensates and their relationship to optical lattices is provided. The Bose-Hubbard model restricted to two wells is also described, and a large number of particles is considered, allowing for the use of the semiclassical mean-field approximation. By introducing anisotropy into this system, a symmetry breaking in phase space is found, which can be interpreted as a dissipative process emerging in semiclassical dynamics, although the total particle flux is conserved. Additionally, this same system is studied using the spin formalism considering a large number of bosons. Under this approach, the anisotropy affects the system in the same way as a Zeeman effect, where the dimer behaves as an N/2 spin model in the presence of an external magnetic field proportional to ∆. The expectation values of the spin components and their variances are studied, especially for ˆSz , which by definition represents the difference of particles for both wells and depends strongly on the anisotropy. The quantum fluctuations for ˆSx, ˆSy, and ˆSz decrease with increasing particle number, particularly as ∝ 1/N , suggesting that ˆSx, ˆSy, and ˆSz becomes more quantum localized near the semiclassical limit.
This dissertation discusses a number of theoretical models of coupled bosonic modes, all closely related to the Bose-Hubbard dimer. In studying these models, we will repeatedly return to two unifying themes: the classical structure underlying quantum dynamics and the impact of weakly coupling a system to an environment. Or, more succinctly, semiclassical methods and open quantum systems. \n \nOur primary motivation for studying models such as the Bose-Hubbard is their relevance to ongoing ultracold atom experiments. We review these experiments, derive the Bose-Hubbard model in their context and briefly discuss its limitations in the first half of Chapter 1. In its second half, we review the theory of open quantum systems and the master equation description of the dissipative Bose-Hubbard model. This opening chapter constitutes a survey of existing results, rather than original work. \n \nIn Chapter 2, we turn to the mean-field limit of the Bose-Hubbard model. After reviewing the striking localization phenomena predicted by the mean-field (and confirmed by experiment), we identify the first corrections to this picture for the dimer. The most interesting of these is the dynamical tunneling between the self-trapping points of the mean-field. We derive an accurate analytical expression for the tunneling rate using semiclassical techniques. \n \nWe continue studying the dynamics near the self-trapping fixed points in Chapter 3, focusing on corrections to the mean-field that arise at larger nonlinearities and on shorter time scales than dynamical tunneling. We study the impact of dissipation on coherence and entanglement near the fixed points, and explain it in terms of the structure of the classical phase space. \n \nThe last chapter of the dissertation is also devoted to a dissipative bosonic dimer model, but one arising in a very different physical context. Abandoning optical lattices, we consider the problem of formulating a quantum model of operation of the cylindrical anode magnetron, a vacuum tube crossed-field microwave amplifier. We derive an effective dissipative dimer model and study its relationship to the classical description. Our dimer model is a first step towards the analysis of solid-state analogs of such devices.
Since the experimental realization of Bose-Einstein condensation in 1995, the field of ultracold atoms has expanded rapidly, and has become an important arena for exploring diverse quantum many-body physics, as highlighted by the experimental observation of quantum phase transitions in the system of bosons in a periodic potential, which is described by the Bose-Hubbard model.Recently, ultracold atoms with spin degrees of freedom are actively studied because the coupling between the internal spin degrees of freedom and the spatial degrees of freedom can give rise to novel and interesting physics.A minimal model for studying such physics is the spin-1 Bose-Hubbard model, which describes spin-1 bosons in a periodic potential.The model has a spin-dependent interaction, which can be ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic, and it is known that although the ferromagnetic model resembles the spinless counterpart, the antiferromagnetic model exhibits totally different features, which make the model much more intensively studied compared with the ferromagnetic one.However, the presence of an external magnetic field can change the situation, because the positive quadratic Zeeman energy competes with the ferromagnetic interaction, which can give rise to rich phases.In this thesis, we explore the ground-state and nonzero-temperature phase diagrams of the spin-1 Bose-Hubbard model under an external magnetic field.To analyze the model, we use an approximation method called the decoupling approximation, or equivalently, the Gutzwiller variational ansatz.It is shown that, in addition to the Mott insulator phase, the model possesses two superfluid phases.Moreover, for large values of a spin-dependent interaction, the phase transitions between the two superfluid phases can be discontinuous.Such discontinuous phase transitions are shown to survive at nonzero but sufficiently low temperature.The discontinuous phase transitions are in clear contrast to the mean-field theory of weakly interacting spin-1 bosons without a lattice, which predicts that the corresponding phase transition is continuous, signifying the importance of the effect of strong interactions on the interplay between the spatial and spinor degrees of freedom. 4.1.2The grand Hamiltonian . . . . . . . . .
In recent years the quantum simulation of condensed-matter physics problems has resulted from ex- citing experimental progress in the realm of ultracold atoms and molecules in optical lattices. In this thesis we analyze theoretically a spinor Bose gas loaded into a three-dimensional cubic optical lattice. In order to account for different superfluid phases of spin-1 bosons with a linear Zeeman effect, we work out a Ginzburg-Landau theory for the underlying spin-1 Bose-Hubbard model. To this end we add artificial symmetry- breaking currents to the spin-1 Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian in order to break the global U (1) symmetry. With this we determine a diagrammatic expansion of the grand-canonical free energy up to fourth order in the symmetry-breaking currents and up to the leading non-trivial order in the hopping strength which is of first order. As a cross-check we demonstrate that the resulting grand- canonical free energy allows to recover the mean-field theory. Applying a Legendre transfor- mation to the grand-canonical free energy, where the symmetry-breaking currents are transformed to order parameters, we obtain the effective Ginzburg-Landau action. With this we calculate in detail at zero temperature the Mott insulator-superfluid quantum phase boundary as well as condensate and particle number density in the superfluid phase. We find that both mean-field and Ginzburg-Landau theory yield the same quantum phase transition between the Mott insulator and superfluid phases, but the range of validity of the mean-field theory turns out to be smaller than that of the Ginzburg-Landau theory. Due to this finding we expect that the Ginzburg-Landau theory gives better results for the superfluid phase and, thus, we restrict ourselves to extremize only the effective Ginzburg-Landau action with respect to the order parameters. With- out external magnetic field the superfluid phase is a polar (ferromagnetic) state for anti-ferromagnetic (ferromagnetic) interactions, i.e. only the hyperfine spin 0 (1) is macroscopically occupied, in accor- dance with previous mean-field results. On the other hand, in the presence of the external magnetic field for ferromagnetic interaction, the superfluid phase does not change as the minimization of the energy implies the maximal spin value. However, when an anti-ferromagnetic interaction competes with the linear Zeeman effect, we can distinguish various ferromagnetic and anti-ferromagnetic su- perfluid phases within the range of validity of the Ginzburg-Landau theory. Increasing the external magnetic field yields a breaking of spin singlet pairs and a subsequent alignment of spins, thus anti- ferromagnetic phases decrease until only a ferromagnetic superfluid phase prevails. In addition, we find that the superfluid-Mott insulator phase transition is always of second order for both ferromag- netic and anti- ferromagnetic interactions. However, the transitions between different superfluid phases for an anti-ferromagnetic interaction can be both of first and second order depending on whether the respective macroscopic occupation of hyperfine spin states changes discontinuously or continuously. The established Ginzburg-Landau theory for spin-1 bosons in optical lattices will certainly be the basis for many further applications as, for instance, time-of-flight absorption pictures or collective excitations, which are of experimental importance.
Ultracold Bose gases as precise quantum simulators have emerged amongst the leaders in the current race – a second quantum revolution – toward the promise of unfathomable sensitivity, scope, and speed of a new era of technology. The only path leading to these advancements is through many-body descriptions, especially in regimes where interatomic interactions render many approximations incompatible with the physics. The research in this dissertation unlocks a piece of this mystery through investigations of many-body quantum tunneling of ultracold bosons in optical lattices. A key mechanism to characterizing the dynamics, matrix product state simulations equip the many-body toolbox with efficient optimization of large Hilbert spaces together with correlation and entropy measures that help clarify when semiclassical or mean-field approximations fail. In this thesis we obtain the following results. Macroscopic quantum tunneling escape of a Bose-Einstein condensate – comprised of tens of thousands of 87Rb atoms – from a single well, as portrayed through both experiment and theory, highlights non-exponential decay in the number of atoms trapped behind the barrier. Additionally, explicit symmetry breaking of a biperiodic optical lattice ring trap to a uniform one illustrates a critical symmetry-breaking strength at which the system transitions from a state of remembering to a state of forgetting its initial symmetry state; this symmetry memory indicates a new form of quantum dynamics that requires the quantum advantage for scaling up particle number and lattice sites. Extensive characterization of dynamical regimes in a bosonic Josephson junction – underlaid by an optical lattice as described by the Bose-Hubbard model – reveal substantial deviation of many body dynamics from the mean field or semiclassical predictions underlying the usual operating regime of Josephson junctions. Initial state population and phase yield insight into dynamic tunneling regimes of a quasi one-dimensional double well potential, through the Z2 spontaneous symmetry-breaking phase transition from Josephson oscillations to macroscopic self-trapping. We demonstrate that with increasing repulsive interaction strength, the U(1) superfluid-Mott insulator phase transition induces localized dynamics in the number density, such as particle-hole and soliton formation. Moreover, g^(2) correlations unveil a new dynamic regime – the Fock flashlight. The new field of atomtronics – or atomic circuits – has emerged with many studies of weakly-interacting condensates. In contrast, and building on our work on many-body effects in the double wells underlying Josephson junctions, we present a proof-of-principle of a Mott-insulating atomtronic switch that requires strongly-interacting bosons. Through transient analysis, we reveal that hole conductance can be modulated via tuning interaction strength through a critical value, thus propelling the state to the next ``wedding cake'' layer of the Mott insulating structure. This critical interaction strength is a…
In this thesis we study various aspects of spinor Bose-Einstein condensates in optical superlattices using a Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian that takes spin effects into account. We decouple the unit cells of the superlattice via a mean-field approach and take into account the dynamics within the unit cell exactly. In this way we derive the ground-state phase diagram of spinor bosons in superlattices. The system supports Mott-insulating as well as superfluid phases. The transitions between these phases are second-order for spinless bosons and second- or first-order for spin-1 bosons. Antiferromagnetic interactions energetically penalize high-spin configurations and elongate all Mott lobes, especially the ones corresponding to an even atom number on each lattice site. We find that the quadratic Zeeman effect lifts the degeneracy between different polar superfluid phases leading to additional metastable phases and first-order phase transitions. A change of magnetic fields can drive quantum phase transitions in the same way as a change in the tunneling amplitude does. Furthermore we study the physics of spin-1 atoms in superlattices deep in the Mott insulating phase when the superlattice decomposes into isolated double-well potentials. Assuming that a small number of spin-1 bosons is loaded in an optical double-well potential, we study single-particle tunneling that occurs when one lattice site is ramped up relative to a neighboring site. Spin-dependent effects modify the tunneling events in a qualitative and quantitative way. Depending on the asymmetry of the double well different types of magnetic order occur, making the system of spin-1 bosons in an optical superlattice a model for mesoscopic magnetism with an unprecedented control of the parameters. Homogeneous and inhomogeneous magnetic fields are applied and the effects of the linear and the quadratic Zeeman shifts are examined. We generalize the concept of bosonic staircases to connected double-well potentials. We show that an energy offset between the two sites of the unit cell in an extended superlattice induces a staircase of single-atom resonances in \nthe same way as in isolated double well. We also examine single-atom resonances in the superfluid regime and find clear fingerprints of them in the superfluid density. We also investigate the bipartite entanglement between the sites and construct states of maximal entanglement. The entanglement in our system is due to both orbital and spin degrees of freedom. We calculate the contribution of orbital and \nspin entanglement and show that the sum of these two terms gives a lower bound for the total entanglement.
In this thesis we study and characterize the behavior of Bose-Einstein condensates in a BJJ, using two different theoretical formalisms: the mean-field approximation (with the Gross-Pitaevskii equation) and many-body calculations (based on Bose-Hubbard models). \n\t\t\t\t With single-component Bose-Einstein condensates, we have focused on the study of the structure of the ground state as a function of the system parameters. We have looked for strongly correlated states, that cannot be described with mean-field theories, and we have proposed a variational wave function that captures the structure of the ground state for a broad interval of the system parameters. We have also studied the nonlinear effects of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation, visible when atom-atom interactions are strong. \n\t\t\t\t In the case of binary mixtures of Bose-Einstein condensates we have performed an intensive study of the different regimes that can arise and in which conditions. The standard two-mode approximation is one of the most used in the study of the Josephson effect, as it gives simple analytic equations that capture, to a great extend, the behavior of the system. When the link between condensates is not weak enough, one has to consider a correction to this approximation, namely, the improved two-mode approximation. In this thesis, we have derived this last approximation for the binary mixture and we have checked its validity comparing it with numerical simulations of the three-dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii equation. Moreover, as the Josephson dynamics is almost one-dimensional, we have considered the two most common reductions of the dimensionality of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. In this case, we have also compared, using simulations, these one-dimensional reductions with the three-dimensional equation. \n\t\t\t\t We have also studied spinor condensates in an external BJJ. We have focused on condensates formed by atoms with spin F=1, which can be in any of the three internal states mF=0,pm1. Furthermore, in contrast to the binary mixture, spin interchange is allowed, so that the number of particles of each component becomes a dynamic variable. First, we have studied this system within the mean-field framework, using the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. We have derived the two-mode approximation equations and we have focused in studying the decoupling of the Josephson effect and the population transfer dynamics. In this case, we also compare the results with numerical simulations of the three dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii equation. Second, we have studied the spinor BJJ using the Bose-Hubbard formalism, because some features of quantum fluctuations are better captured than with the mean-field. We have characterized the ground state, paying special attention to the regions where it is strongly correlated. We have seen how the spin singlet formation (strongly correlated state between two particles) affects the structure of the ground state. \n\n\t\t\t\t Finally, we have studied finite temperature effects on spinor Bose-Einstein condensates in the presence of a magnetic field, for two different cases. First, we have analyzed a condensate formed by F=1 atoms with contact interactions. We have considered that the condensate was formed by atoms in the internal state mF=0 and we have studied the dependence of the fluctuations of the other two components mF=pm1 as a function of temperature. We have used the Bogoliubov formalism applied to an homogeneous system, and then, we have generalized the result to an harmonic trap by using the local density approximation. Second, we have studied a condensate formed by particles with F=3 with contact interactions and moreover, dipolar interactions. In a similar way as the previous case, we consider that the condensate is formed by particles with mF=−3 and we study the fluctuations in mF=−2 and mF=−3.