Dynamical suppression of tunneling and spin switching of a spin-orbit-coupled atom in a double-well trap

Abstract

We predict wide-band suppression of tunneling of spin-orbit-coupled atoms (or noninteracting Bose-Einstein condensate) in a double-well potential with periodically varying depths of the potential wells. The suppression of tunneling is possible for a single state and for superposition of two states, i.e. for a qbit. By varying spin-orbit coupling one can drastically increase the range of modulation frequencies in which an atom remains localized in one of the potential wells, the effect connected with crossing of energy levels. This range of frequencies is limited because temporal modulation may also excite resonant transitions between lower and upper states in different wells. The resonant transitions enhance tunneling and are accompanied by pseudo-spin switching. Since the frequencies of the resonant transitions are independent of potential modulation depth, in contrast to frequencies at which suppression of tunneling occurs, by varying this depth one can dynamically control both spatial localization and pseudo-spin of the final state.