• Tunneling of trapped-atom Bose condensates

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      https://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/pram/058/02/0385-0397

    • Keywords

       

      Tunneling; Bose-Einstein condensates; trapped atoms; pendulum

    • Abstract

       

      We obtain the dynamics in number and phase difference, for Bose condensates that tunnel between two wells of a double-well atomic trap, using the (nonlinear) Gross-Pitaevskii equation. The dynamical equations are of the canonical form for the two conjugate variables, and the Hamiltonian corresponds to that of a momentum-shortened pendulum, supporting a richer set of tunneling oscillation modes than for a superconductor Josephson junction, that has a fixed-length pendulum as a mechanical model. Novel modes include ‘inverted pendulum’ oscillations with an average angle of π; and oscillations about a self-maintained population imbalance that we term ‘macroscopic quantum self-trapping’. Other systems with this phase-number nonlinear dynamics include two-component (interconverting) condensates in a single harmonic trap, and He3B superfluids in two containers connected by micropores.

    • Author Affiliations

       

      Subodh R Shenoy1

      1. Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, P.O. Box 586, Trieste - 34100, Italy
    • Dates

       
  • Pramana – Journal of Physics | News

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