Impurity in a bosonic Josephson junction: swallowtail loops, chaos, self-trapping and the poor mans Dicke model

We study a model describing $N$ 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 go from being regular to chaotic above the bifurcation and macroscopic excitations of the bosons are observed. Overall, the boson-impurity system behaves like a poor mans version of the Dicke model.

Impurity in a Bose-Einstein condensate in a double well

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 Schroedinger 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.

Collective excitation frequencies and stationary states of trapped dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates in the Thomas-Fermi regime

We present a general method for obtaining the exact static solutions and collective excitation frequencies of a trapped Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) with dipolar atomic interactions in the Thomas-Fermi regime. The method incorporates analytic expressions for the dipolar potential of an arbitrary polynomial density profile, thereby reducing the problem of handling non-local dipolar interactions to the solution of algebraic equations. We comprehensively map out the static solutions and excitation modes, including non-cylindrically symmetric traps, and also the case of negative scattering length where dipolar interactions stabilize an otherwise unstable condensate. The dynamical stability of the excitation modes gives insight into the onset of collapse of a dipolar BEC. We find that global collapse is consistently mediated by an anisotropic quadrupolar collective mode, although there are two trapping regimes in which the BEC is stable against quadrupole fluctuations even as the ratio of the dipolar to s-wave interactions becomes infinite. Motivated by the possibility of fragmented BEC in a dipolar Bose gas due to the partially attractive interactions, we pay special attention to the scissors modes, which can provide a signature of superfluidity, and identify a long-range restoring force which is peculiar to dipolar systems. As part of the supporting material for this paper we provide the computer program used to make the calculations, including a graphical user interface.

Atomic Bloch-Zener oscillations for sensitive force measurements in a cavity

Cold atoms in an optical lattice execute Bloch-Zener oscillations when they are accelerated. We have performed a theoretical investigation into the case when the optical lattice is the intra-cavity field of a driven Fabry-Perot resonator. When the atoms oscillate inside the resonator, we find that their back-action modulates the phase and intensity of the light transmitted through the cavity. We solve the coupled atom-light equations self-consistently and show that, remarkably, the Bloch period is unaffected by this back-action. The transmitted light provides a way to observe the oscillation continuously, allowing high precision measurements to be made with a small cloud of atoms.

Classical versus quantum dynamics of the atomic Josephson junction

We compare the classical (mean-field) dynamics with the quantum dynamics of atomic Bose-Einstein condensates in double-well potentials. The quantum dynamics are computed using a simple scheme based upon the Raman-Nath equations. Two different methods for exciting a non-equilbrium state are considered: an asymmetry between the wells which is suddenly removed, and a periodic time oscillating asymmetry. The first method generates wave packets that lead to collapses and revivals of the expectation values of the macroscopic variables, and we calculate the time scale for these revivals. The second method permits the excitation of a single energy eigenstate of the many-particle system, including Schroedinger cat states. We also discuss a band theory interpretation of the energy level structure of an asymmetric double-well, thereby identifying analogies to Bloch oscillations and Bragg resonances. Both the Bloch and Bragg dynamics are purely quantum and are not contained in the mean-field treatment.