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arXiv:cond-mat/9803298 · Physical Review A

Bose-Einstein condensate in a double-well potential as an open quantum system

Janne Ruostekoski, Daniel F. Walls

Published Jul 1, 1998• 143 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We study the dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a double-well potential in the two-mode approximation. The dissipation of energy from the condensate is described by the coupling to a thermal reservoir of noncondensate modes. As a consequence of the coupling, the self-locked population imbalance in the macroscopic quantum self-trapping decays away. We show that a coherent state predicted by spontaneous symmetry breaking is not robust and decoheres rapidly into a statistical mixture due to the interactions between condensate and noncondensate atoms. However, via stochastic simulations we find that with a sufficiently fast measurement rate of the relative phase between the two wells the matter wave coherence is established even in the presence of the decoherence.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.58.r50

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We study the dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a double-well potential in the two-mode approximation. The dissipation of energy from the condensate is described by the coupling to a thermal reservoir of noncondensate modes. As a consequence of the coupling, the self-locked population imbalance in the macroscopic quantum self-trapping decays away. We show that a coherent state predicted by spontaneous symmetry breaking is not robust and decoheres rapidly into a statistical mixture due to the interactions between condensate and noncondensate atoms. However, via stochastic simulations we find that with a sufficiently fast measurement rate of the relative phase between the two wells the matter wave coherence is established even in the presence of the decoherence.
We study the coherent nonlinear tunneling dynamics of a binary mixture of Bose-Einstein condensates in a double-well potential. We demonstrate the existence of a type of mode associated with the ``swapping'' of the two species in the two wells of the potential. In contrast to the symmetry-breaking macroscopic quantum self-trapping (MQST) solutions, the swapping modes correspond to the tunneling dynamics that preserves the symmetry of the double-well potential. As a consequence of two distinct types of broken-symmetry MQST phases where the two species localize in different potential wells or coexist in the same well, the corresponding symmetry-restoring swapping modes result in dynamics where the two species either avoid or chase each other. In view of the possibility to control the interaction between the species, the binary mixture offers a very robust system to observe these novel effects as well as the phenomena of Josephson oscillations and $\ensuremath{\pi}$ modes.
We show that the adiabatic dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in a double-well potential can be described in terms of a dark variable resulting from the combination of the population imbalance and the spatial atomic coherence between the two wells. By means of this dark variable, we extend, to the nonlinear matter-wave case, the recent proposal by Vitanov and Shore [Phys. Rev. A 73, 053402 (2006)] on adiabatic passage techniques to coherently control the population of two internal levels of an atom or molecule. We investigate the conditions to adiabatically split or transport a BEC as well as to prepare an adiabatic self-trapping state by the optimal delayed temporal variation of the tunneling rate via either the energy bias between the two wells or the BEC nonlinearity. The emergence of nonlinear eigenstates and unstable stationary solutions of the system as well as their role in the breaking down of the adiabatic dynamics is investigated in detail.
Based on the mean-field approximation and a phase-space analysis, we discuss the dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) in a double-well potential. The condensates are found to be trapped in the time-dependent eigenstates of the effective Hamiltonian; we refer to this effect as time-dependent self-trapping of BECs. By comparison of this self-trapping with the adiabatic evolution, we find that adiabatic evolution beyond the traditional adiabatic condition can be achieved in BECs. Furthermore, the population imbalance of the BECs in the wells can be controlled by manipulating the atom-atom couplings and the driving field. The fixed points for the system are also calculated and discussed.
Abstract: In this work, we study the dissipative dynamics of a double-well Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) out-coupled to reservoir at each side of its trap. The sub-system comprises of a simple Bose-Hubbard model, where the interplay of atom-tunneling current and inter-particle interaction are the main quantum features. The contact with two separate heat baths causes dissipation and drives the system into a non-equilibrium state. The system is well described by the Generalized Quantum Heisenberg-Langevin equation. We considered two Markovian dissipative BEC systems based on (i) the mean-field model (MF), where the internal noise has been averaged out and (ii) the noise-correlated model (FDT). Physical quantities, such as population imbalance, coherence and entanglement of the system, are computed for the models. The two-mode BEC phases, such as the quantum tunneling state and the macroscopic quantum-trapping state, evolved into complicated dynamics by controlling the non-linear interaction and dissipation strengths. We found that many important quantum features produced by the noise-correlated FDT model are not captured by the mean-field model. Keywords: Double-well BEC, Dissipation, Noise, Markovian, Non-Markovian, Fixed points. PACS: 03.75 Lm, 03.65 Yz, 03.75 Gg, 05.
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.
Bose Einstein condensates (BECs) in double well potentials have drawn a lot of attention for the possibilities they offer to study fundamental quantum mechanical effects at the macroscopic level as well as for potential applications like interferometry, high precision measurements or thermometry. In contrast to Josephson junctions realized in superconductors and superfluids, in BEC the interatomic interactions play a crucial role leading to anharmonic Josephson oscillations, if the initial population imbalance of the two wells is below a critical value, and to macroscopic quantum self-trapping i.e, inhibition of large amplitude Josephson oscillations above the threshold for the population imbalance. In this paper, a novel technique to adiabatically control of BEC in a double-well potential is proposed. The adiabatic dynamics of a BEC in a double well potential can be described in terms of a dark variable resulting from a combination of the population imbalance and the spatial atomic coherence.