Bosons condensed in two modes with flavor-changing interaction

Abstract

A quantum model is considered for $N$ bosons populating two orthogonal single-particle modes with tunable energy separation in the presence of flavour-changing contact interaction. The quantum ground state is well approximated as a coherent superposition (for zero temperature) or a mixture (at low temperature) of two quasi-classical states. In a mean field description, the systems realizes one of these states via spontaneous symmetry breaking. Both mean field states, in a certain parameter range, possess finite angular momentum and exhibit broken time-reversal symmetry in contrast to the quantum ground state. The phase diagram is explored at the mean-field level and by direct diagonalisation. The nature of the quantum ground state at zero and finite temperature is analyzed by means of the Penrose Onsager criterion. One of three possible phases shows fragmentation on the single-particle level together with a finite pair order parameter. Thermal and quantum fluctuations are characterized with respect to regions of universal scaling behavior. The non-equilibrium dynamics shows a sharp transition between a self-trapping and a pair-tunneling regime. A recently realized experimental implementation is discussed with bosonic atoms condensed in the two inequivalent energy minima $X_{\pm}$ of the second band of a bipartite two-dimensional optical lattice.