Tunneling dynamics of two interacting one-dimensional particles

Abstract

We present one-dimensional simulation results for the cold atom tunneling experiments by the Heidelberg group [G. Z\"urn {\em{et al.}}, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf{108}}, 075303 (2012) and G. Z\"urn {\em{et al.}}, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf{111}}, 175302 (2013)] on one or two $^6$Li atoms confined by a potential that consists of an approximately harmonic optical trap plus a linear magnetic field gradient. At the non-interacting particle level, we find that the WKB (Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin) approximation may not be used as a reliable tool to extract the trapping potential parameters from the experimentally measured tunneling data. We use our numerical calculations along with the experimental tunneling rates for the non-interacting system to reparameterize the trapping potential. The reparameterized trapping potentials serve as input for our simulations of two interacting particles. For two interacting (distinguishable) atoms on the upper branch, we reproduce the experimentally measured tunneling rates, which vary over several orders of magnitude, fairly well. For infinitely strong interaction strength, we compare the time dynamics with that of two identical fermions and discuss the implications of fermionization on the dynamics. For two attractively-interacting atoms on the molecular branch, we find that single-particle tunneling dominates for weakly-attractive interactions while pair tunneling dominates for strongly-attractive interactions. Our first set of calculations yields qualitative but not quantitative agreement with the experimentally measured tunneling rates. We obtain quantitative agreement with the experimentally measured tunneling rates if we allow for a weakened radial confinement.