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arXiv:cond-mat/0612616 · Physical Review Letters

Role of Excited States in the Splitting of a Trapped Interacting Bose-Einstein Condensate by a Time-Dependent Barrier

Alexej I. Streltsov, Ofir E. Alon, Lorenz S. Cederbaum

Published Jul 20, 2007• 221 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

An essentially exact approach to compute the wave function in the time-dependent many-boson Schrödinger equation is derived and employed to study accurately the process of splitting a trapped condensate. As the trap transforms from a single to double well the ground state changes from a coherent to a fragmented state. We follow the role played by many-body excited states during the splitting process. Among others, a "counterintuitive" regime is found in which the evolution of the condensate when the splitting is sufficiently slow is not to the fragmented ground state, but to a low-lying excited state which is a coherent state. Experimental implications are discussed.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.99.030402

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This review explores the dynamics and the low-energy excitation spectra of Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) of interacting bosons in external potential traps putting particular emphasis on the emerging many-body effects beyond mean-field descriptions. To do so, methods have to be used that, in principle, can provide numerically exact results for both the dynamics and the excitation spectra in a systematic manner. Numerically exact results for the dynamics are presented employing the well-established multicongurational time-dependent Hartree for bosons (MCTDHB) method. The respective excitation spectra are calculated utilizing the more recently introduced linear-response theory atop it (LR-MCTDHB). The latter theory gives rise to an, in general, non-hermitian eigenvalue problem. The theory and its newly developed implementation are described in detail and benchmarked towards the exactly-solvable harmonic-interaction model. Several applications to BECs in one- and two-dimensional potential traps are discussed. With respect to dynamics, it is shown that both the out-of-equilibrium tunneling dynamics and the dynamics of trapped vortices are of many-body nature. Furthermore, many-body effects in the excitation spectra are presented for BECs in different trap geometries. It is demonstrated that even for essentially-condensed systems, the spectrum of the lowest-in-energy excitations computed at the many-body level can differ substantially from the standard mean-field description. In general, it is shown that bosons carrying angular momentum are more sensitive to many-body effects than bosons without. These effects are present in both the dynamics and the excitation spectrum.

arXiv:2101.11615•Jan 27, 2021•1 citation
An essentially exact approach to compute the wave function in the time-dependent many-boson Schrödinger equation is derived and employed to study accurately the process of splitting a trapped condensate. As the trap transforms from a single to double well the ground state changes from a coherent to a fragmented state. We follow the role played by many-body excited states during the splitting process. Among others, a "counterintuitive" regime is found in which the evolution of the condensate when the splitting is sufficiently slow is not to the fragmented ground state, but to a low-lying excited state which is a coherent state. Experimental implications are discussed.
A two-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) split by a radial potential barrier is investigated. We determine on an accurate many-body level the system's ground-state phase diagram as well as a time-dependent phase diagram of the splitting process. Whereas the ground state is condensed for a wide range of parameters, the time-dependent splitting process leads to substantial fragmentation. We demonstrate the dynamical fragmentation of a BEC despite its ground state being condensed. The results are analyzed using a mean-field model and suggest that a large manifold of low-lying fragmented excited states can significantly impact the dynamics of trapped two-dimensional BECs.
The fragmentation of the ground state of a repulsive condensate immersed into a double-trap potential is found to be a general and critical phenomenon. It takes place for a given number of bosons if their scattering length is larger than some critical value or for a given value of the scattering length if the number of bosons is above some critical number. We demonstrate that the geometry of the inner trap determines these critical parameters while the number of the fragments and the fraction of bosons in the various fragments can be manipulated by the outer trap. There is also a maximal number of bosons for which the ground state is fragmented. If this number is exceeded, the fragmented state becomes a very low-lying excited state of the condensate. This maximal number of bosons can be substantially manipulated by varying the inner and outer traps. To study threefold fragmentation we have chosen a potential well with two barriers as the inner trap and embedded in two types of outer ones. A manifold fragmentation is also addressed.
Linear response of simple (i.e., condensed) Bose-Einstein condensates is known to lead to the Bogoliubov--de Gennes equations. Here, we derive linear response for fragmented Bose-Einstein condensates, i.e., for the case where the many-body wave function is not a product of one, but of several single-particle states (orbitals). This gives one access to excitation spectra and response amplitudes of systems beyond the Gross-Pitaevskii description. Our approach is based on the number-conserving variational time-dependent mean-field theory [Alon, Streltsov, and Cederbaum, Phys. Lett. A 362, 453 (2007)], which describes the time evolution of best-mean-field states. Correspondingly, we call our linear-response theory for fragmented states LR-BMF. In the derivation it follows naturally that excitations are orthogonal to the ground-state orbitals. As applications excitation spectra of Bose-Einstein condensates in double-well potentials are calculated. Both symmetric and asymmetric double wells are studied for several interaction strengths and barrier heights. The cases of condensed and twofold fragmented ground states are compared. Interestingly, even in such situations where the response frequencies of the two cases are computed to be close to each other, which is the situation for the excitations well below the barrier, striking differences in the density response in momentum space are found. For excitations with an energy of the order of the barrier height, both the energies and the density response of condensed and fragmented systems are very different. In fragmented systems there is a class of ``swapped'' excitations where an atom is transferred to the neighboring well. The mechanism of its origin is discussed. In asymmetric wells, the response of a fragmented system is purely local (i.e., finite in either one or the other well) with different frequencies for the left and right fragments. This finding is in stark contrast to that for condensed systems.
We study the dynamics of merging two initially independent Bose–Einstein condensates by adiabatically deforming the trap potential from a double well into a single well. The process of slowly decreasing the height of the central barrier of the double well is simulated by a full 3D calculation of the Gross–Pitaevskii equation. We investigate the dynamics by considering some factors relevant to experiments, e.g., the atom number, the initial state in each well, the initial relative phase between the two condensates. For a small number of 4400 atoms in each well and the same initial phase, we find for both condensates in the ground state or the p-wave soliton state that the final state is the ground state or the p-wave soliton state of the final trap potential. For cases in which both condensates are vortex states, we find much richer dynamics with the appearance of an extra vortex. We also discuss the cases for different initial relative phases. For comparison, we present results for 44 000 atoms corresponding to a larger nonlinear term in the Gross–Pitaevskii equation. In support of future experimental observations, we show both probability density and current maps.
We investigate the collective excitations of a single-species Bose gas at T=0T=0T=0 in a harmonic trap where the confinement undergoes some splitting along one spatial direction. We mostly consider one-dimensional potentials consisting of two harmonic wells separated by a distance 2z0{2z}_{0}2z0​, since they essentially contain all the barrier effects that one may visualize in the three-dimensional situation. We find, within a hydrodynamic approximation, that regardless of the dimensionality of the system, pairs of levels in the excitation spectrum, corresponding to neighboring even and odd excitations, merge together as one increases the barrier height up to the current value of the chemical potential. The excitation spectra computed in the hydrodynamical or Thomas-Fermi limit are compared with the results obtained from exactly solving the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation. We also analyze the characteristics of the spatial pattern of excitations of three-dimensional boson systems according to the amount of splitting of the condensate.
This review explores the dynamics and the low-energy excitation spectra of Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) of interacting bosons in external potential traps putting particular emphasis on the emerging many-body effects beyond mean-field descriptions. To do so, methods have to be used that, in principle, can provide numerically exact results for both the dynamics and the excitation spectra in a systematic manner. Numerically exact results for the dynamics are presented employing the well-established multicongurational time-dependent Hartree for bosons (MCTDHB) method. The respective excitation spectra are calculated utilizing the more recently introduced linear-response theory atop it (LR-MCTDHB). The latter theory gives rise to an, in general, non-hermitian eigenvalue problem. The theory and its newly developed implementation are described in detail and benchmarked towards the exactly-solvable harmonic-interaction model. Several applications to BECs in one- and two-dimensional potential traps are discussed. With respect to dynamics, it is shown that both the out-of-equilibrium tunneling dynamics and the dynamics of trapped vortices are of many-body nature. Furthermore, many-body effects in the excitation spectra are presented for BECs in different trap geometries. It is demonstrated that even for essentially-condensed systems, the spectrum of the lowest-in-energy excitations computed at the many-body level can differ substantially from the standard mean-field description. In general, it is shown that bosons carrying angular momentum are more sensitive to many-body effects than bosons without. These effects are present in both the dynamics and the excitation spectrum.