Hyperchaos of two coupled Bose–Einstein condensates with a three-body interaction

Abstract

We investigate the dynamics of two tunnel-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) in a double-well potential. The effects of the three-body recombination loss and the feeding of the condensates from the thermal cloud are studied in the case of attractive interatomic interaction. An imaginary three-body interaction term is considered and a two-mode approximation is used to derive three coupled equations which describe the total atomic numbers of the two condensates, the relative population and relative phase respectively. Theoretical analyses and numerical calculations demonstrate the existence of chaotic and hyperchaotic behaviour by using a periodically time-varying scattering length.