Symmetry Breaking and a Dynamical Property of a Dipolar Bose–Einstein Condensate in a Triple-Well Potential

Abstract

We investigate the properties of a three-dimensional (3D) dipolar Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) in a triple-well potential. Symmetry breaking and self-trapping (SBST) phenomena are demonstrated for 52Cr atoms in the 3D triple-well potential using numerical solutions of the Gross–Pitaevskii (GP) equation. The results show that the ground-state density distributions are affected markedly by the long-range nature and anisotropy of the dipolar interaction and the isotropic s-wave contact interaction. In addition, the dynamical picture of the SBST induced by a gradual transformation of the single-well potential into a triple-well one is also illustrated. SBST phenomena are also presented by adjusting the height of the middle potential well when the dipole orientation is aligned in the dipole axis.