Dynamics Of Bose-Einstein Condensate Research Articles

Collective modes and generation of a new vortex in a trapped Bose gas at finite temperature

The dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) is studied at nonzero temperatures using our variational time-dependent-Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov formalism. We have shown that this approach is an efficient tool to study the expansion and collective excitations of the condensate, the thermal cloud, and the anomalous correlation function at nonzero temperatures. We have found that the condensate and the anomalous density have the same breathing oscillations. We have investigated, on the other hand, the behavior of a single quantized vortex in a harmonically trapped BEC at nonzero temperatures. Generalized expressions for vortex excitations, vortex core size, and Kelvin modes have been derived. An important and somehow surprising result is that the numerical solution of our equations predicts that the vortex core is partially filled by the thermal atoms at nonzero temperatures. We have shown that the effect of thermal fluctuations is important and it may lead to enhancing the size of the vortex core. The behavior of the singly anomalous vortex has also been studied at nonzero temperatures.

Nonequilibrium Dynamics of a Bose-Einstein Condensate Excited by a Red Laser Inside a Power-Law Trap with Hard Walls

We explore the nonequilibrium dynamics of a two-dimensional trapped Bose-Einstein condensate excited by a moving red-detuned laser potential. The trap is a combination of a general power-law potential cutoff by a hard wall box potential. The red laser potential is allowed to exit the box potential, leaving the system in a highly nonequilibrium state. This is crucial since the red laser potential squeezes the BEC trapped inside it against the hard wall-boundary at this instant, paving the way for the creation of a shock wave. Once the red laser potential has left the box potential, the Hamiltonian of the system becomes time-independent and the total energy stabilizes. Our systems are simulated by the time-dependent Gross-Ptiaevskii Equation which is numerically solved by the split-step Crank-Nicolson method in real time. It is found that the value at which the total energy stabilizes in the transient stage of the simulation is largely controlled by the initialization process. Before the red laser potential leaves the trap, when the Hamiltonian of the system is still time-dependent, oscillations in the total energy occur if the system is initialized adiabatically by application of a gradually growing and moving red laser potential. If this laser potential is not moving, yet fully present in the initialization process, these oscillations are not observed in the transient stage of the simulation. In addition, the system displays oscillations in the root-mean-square radius of the trapped cloud. The amplitudes of these radial oscillations continue even after the red laser potential leaves the box potential and are used to explore the deviation of the nonstationary states from the corresponding ground states. It is demonstrated that the geometry of the power law potential influences the amplitude of these radial oscillations, reducing them and bringing the systems closer to an equilibrium state. We then argue that by going to tighter trapping geometries, it is not possible to achieve a completely stable system which has been earlier excited by a red laser potential. Most importantly, an increase in the curvature of the power law trap results in chaotic oscillations of the cloud. This work should stimulate further experiments exploring the extent of the nonequilibrium states by a measurement of the amplitude of the root-mean-square radial oscillations of the trapped cloud.

Modulational instability of Bose-Einstein condensate in a complex polynomial in elliptic Jacobian functions potential

We consider a Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) equation with cubic-quintic nonlinearities, which governs the dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) matter waves with time-dependent complex potential in Jacobian elliptic functions. The complex term of the potential accounts for either the atomic feeding or the atomic loss of the condensate. Based on a special variable transformation, an integrable condition is obtained and used, firstly, to explicitly express the growth rate of a purely growing modulational instability and, secondly, to derive classes of exact solitonic and periodic solutions. Analytical solitonic solutions describe the propagation of both dark and bright solitary waves of the BECs.

Dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates in a one-dimensional optical lattice with double-well potential

We study dynamical behaviors of the weakly interacting Bose-Einstein condensate in the one-dimensional optical lattice with an overall double-well potential by solving the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation. It is observed that the double-well potential dominates the dynamics of such a system even if the lattice depth is several times larger than the height of the double-well potential. This result suggests that the condensate flows without resistance in the periodic lattice just like the case of a single particle moving in periodic potentials. Nevertheless, the effective mass of atoms is increased, which can be experimentally verified since it is connected to the Josephson oscillation frequency. Moreover, the periodic lattice enhances the nonlinearity of the double-well condensate, making the condensate more "self-trapped" in the $\pi$-mode self-trapping regime.

Functional Wigner representation of quantum dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensate

We develop a method of simulating the full quantum field dynamics of multi-mode multi-component Bose-Einstein condensates in a trap. We use the truncated Wigner representation to obtain a probabilistic theory that can be sampled. This method produces c-number stochastic equations which may be solved using conventional stochastic methods. The technique is valid for large mode occupation numbers. We give a detailed derivation of methods of functional Wigner representation appropriate for quantum fields. Our approach describes spatial evolution of spinor components and properly accounts for nonlinear losses. Such techniques are applicable to calculating the leading quantum corrections, including effects such as quantum squeezing, entanglement, EPR correlations, and interactions with engineered nonlinear reservoirs. By using a consistent expansion in the inverse density, we are able to explain an inconsistency in the nonlinear loss equations found by earlier authors.

Second-order number-conserving description of nonequilibrium dynamics in finite-temperature Bose-Einstein condensates

While the Gross-Pitaevskii equation is well established as the canonical dynamical description of atomic Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) at zero temperature, describing the dynamics of BECs at finite temperatures remains a difficult theoretical problem, particularly when considering low-temperature, nonequilibrium systems in which depletion of the condensate occurs dynamically as a result of external driving. In this paper, we describe a fully time-dependent numerical implementation of a second-order, number-conserving description of finite-temperature BEC dynamics. This description consists of equations of motion describing the coupled dynamics of the condensate and noncondensate fractions in a self-consistent manner, and is ideally suited for the study of low-temperature, nonequilibrium, driven systems. The $\ensuremath{\delta}$-kicked-rotor BEC provides a prototypical example of such a system, and we demonstrate the efficacy of our numerical implementation by investigating its dynamics at finite temperature. We demonstrate that the qualitative features of the system dynamics at zero temperature are generally preserved at finite temperatures, and predict a quantitative finite-temperature shift of resonance frequencies which would be relevant for, and could be verified by, future experiments.

Phase engineering, modulational instability, and solitons of Gross–Pitaevskii-type equations in 1+1 dimensions

Motivated by recent proposals of "collisionally inhomogeneous" Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs), which have a spatially modulated scattering length, we introduce a phase imprint into the macroscopic order parameter governing the dynamics of BECs with spatiotemporal varying scattering length described by a cubic Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) equation and then suitably engineer the imprinted phase to generate the modified GP equation, also called the cubic derivative nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equation. This equation describes the dynamics of condensates with two-body (attractive and repulsive) interactions in a time-varying quadratic external potential. We then carry out a theoretical analysis which invokes a lens-type transformation that converts the cubic derivative NLS equation into a modified NLS equation with only explicit temporal dependence. Our analysis suggests a particular interest in a specific time-varying potential with the strength of the magnetic trap ~1/(t+t(*))(2). For a time-varying quadratic external potential of this kind, an explicit expression for the growth rate of a purely growing modulational instability is presented and analyzed. We point out the effect of the imprint parameter and the parameter t(*) on the instability growth rate, as well as on the solitary waves of the BECs.

Band Structure of Bose-Einstein Condensates in a Cavity-Mediated Triple-Well System

We investigate the band structure and the dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates in a triple-well trap, which are located in a high-finesse optical cavity. For the noninteracting atoms, the band structure of the eigenenergies are obtained using the numerical methods under the mean-field approximation. It is demonstrated that the energy band structure is strongly dependent on the value of reduced cavity detuning. Under some conditions, the atomic band structure develops loop structures and swallowtail structure, which mean the atom-cavity system exhibits bistability. We attribute the appearance of new states to the nonlinearity of the cavity-field-induced tilt. For the interacting atoms, the structure of the eigenenergy band appears more complicated for the interaction between atoms.

Tunneling dynamics in exactly solvable models with triple-well potentials

Inspired by new trends in atomtronics, cold atom devices and Bose–Einstein condensate dynamics, we apply a general technique of N = 4 extended supersymmetric quantum mechanics to isospectral Hamiltonians with triple-well potentials, i.e. symmetric and asymmetric. Expressions of quantum-mechanical propagators, which take into account all states of the spectrum, are obtained, within the N = 4 SQM approach, in the closed form. For the initial Hamiltonian of a harmonic oscillator, we obtain the explicit expressions of potentials, wavefunctions and propagators. The obtained results are applied to tunneling dynamics of localized states in triple-well potentials and for studying its features. In particular, we observe a Josephson-type tunneling transition of a wave packet, the effect of its partial trapping and a non-monotonic dependence of tunneling dynamics on the shape of a three-well potential. We investigate, among others, the possibility of controlling tunneling transport by changing parameters of the central well, and we briefly discuss potential applications of this aspect to atomtronic devices.

A Time-Splitting and Sine Spectral Method for Dynamics of Dipolar Bose-Einstein Condensate

A two-component Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) described by two coupled a three-dimension Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) equations is considered, where one equation has dipole-dipole interaction while the other one has only the usual s-wave contact interaction, in a cigar trap. The time-splitting and sine spectral method in space is proposed to discretize the time-dependent equations for computing the dynamics of dipolar BEC. The singularity in the dipole-dipole interaction brings significant difficulties both in mathematical analysis and in numerical simulations. Numerical results are given to show the efficiency of this method.

Exact solutions for generalized variable-coefficients Ginzburg-Landau equation: Application to Bose-Einstein condensates with multi-body interatomic interactions

We present a double-mapping method (D-MM), a natural combination of a similarity with F-expansion methods, for obtaining general solvable nonlinear evolution equations. We focus on variable-coefficients complex Ginzburg-Landau equations (VCCGLE) with multi-body interactions. We show that it is easy by this method to find a large class of exact solutions of Gross-Pitaevskii and Gross-Pitaevskii-Ginzburg equations. We apply the D-MM to investigate the dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensation with two- and three-body interactions. As a surprising result, we obtained that it is very easy to use the built D-MM to obtain a large class of exact solutions of VCCGLE with two-body interactions via a generalized VCCGLE with two- and three-body interactions containing cubic-derivative terms. The results show that the proposed method is direct, concise, elementary, and effective, and can be a very effective and powerful mathematical tool for solving many other nonlinear evolution equations in physics.

Approximate mean-field equations of motion for quasi-two-dimensional Bose-Einstein-condensate systems

We present a method for approximating the solution of the three-dimensional, time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation (GPE) for Bose-Einstein-condensate systems where the confinement in one dimension is much tighter than in the other two. This method employs a hybrid Lagrangian variational technique whose trial wave function is the product of a completely unspecified function of the coordinates in the plane of weak confinement and a Gaussian in the strongly confined direction having a time-dependent width and quadratic phase. The hybrid Lagrangian variational method produces equations of motion that consist of (1) a two-dimensional (2D) effective GPE whose nonlinear coefficient contains the width of the Gaussian and (2) an equation of motion for the width that depends on the integral of the fourth power of the solution of the 2D effective GPE. We apply this method to the dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates confined in ring-shaped potentials and compare the approximate solution to the numerical solution of the full 3D GPE.

Dynamics of inertial vortices in multicomponent Bose-Einstein condensates

With use of the nonlinear Schr{\"o}dinger (or Gross-Pitaevskii) equation with strong repulsive cubic nonlinearity, dynamics of multi-component Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) with a harmonic trap in 2 dimensions is investigated beyond the Thomas-Fermi regime. In the case when each component has a single vortex, we obtain an effective nonlinear dynamics for vortex cores (particles). The particles here acquire the inertia, in marked contrast to the standard theory of point vortices widely known in the usual hydrodynamics. The effective dynamics is equivalent to that of charged particles under a strong spring force and in the presence of Lorentz force with the uniform magnetic field. The inter-particle (vortex-vortex) interaction is singularly-repulsive and short-ranged with its magnitude decreasing with increasing distance of the center of mass from the trapping center. "Chaos in the three-body problem" in the three vortices system can be seen, which is not expected in the corresponding point vortices without inertia in 2 dimensions.

Strong-coupling dynamics of Bose–Einstein condensate in a double-well trap

Dynamics of the repulsive Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) in a double-well trap is explored within the 3D time-dependent Gross–Pitaevskii equation. The model avoids numerous common approximations (two-mode treatment, time-space factorization, fixed values of the chemical potential and barrier penetrability, etc) and thus may provide a realistic description of BEC dynamics, including both weak-coupling (sub-barrier) and strong-coupling (above-barrier) regimes and their crossover. The strong coupling regime is achieved by increasing the number N of BEC atoms and thus the chemical potential. The evolution with N of Josephson oscillations (JO) and macroscopic quantum self-trapping (MQST) is examined and the crucial impact of the BEC interaction is demonstrated. At weak coupling, the calculations well reproduce the JO/MQST experimental data. At strong coupling with a significant overlap of the left and right BECs, we observe a remarkable persistence of the Josephson-like dynamics: the JO and MQST converge to a high-frequency JO-like mode where both population imbalance and phase difference oscillate around the zero averages.

A mass conserved splitting method for the nonlinear Schrödinger equation

Abstract A mass conserved time-splitting difference method is presented for the one-dimensional dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) described by a nonlocal nonlinear Schrödinger equation with a convolution term. As a result of the singularity in the convolution term, it brings difficulties both in mathematical analysis and in numerical simulations. By properly using the difference scheme to deal with the convolution term, an imaginary time method is given to compute the ground states and then a time-splitting method is obtained for dynamics of dipolar BECs. This time-splitting numerical method is mass conserved everywhere, and it has second-order accuracy and is also unconditionally stable. Numerical results are given to verify the stability and energy conservation when there is no blow up. Mathematics Subject Classification (2010) 65M06; 35Q41.

Parametric and geometric resonances of collective oscillation modes in Bose–Einstein condensates

We analytically and numerically study nonlinear dynamics in Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) induced either by a harmonic modulation of the interaction or by the geometry of the trapping potential. To analytically describe BEC dynamics, we use a perturbative expansion based on the Poincaré–Lindstedt analysis of a Gaussian variational ansatz, whereas in the numerical approach we use numerical solutions of both a variational system of equations and the full time-dependent Gross–Pitaevskii equation. The harmonic modulation of the atomic s-wave scattering length of a BEC of 7Li was achieved recently via Feshbach resonance, and such a modulation leads to a number of nonlinear effects, which we describe within our approach: mode coupling, higher harmonics generation and significant shifts in the frequencies of collective modes. In addition to the strength of atomic interactions, the geometry of the trapping potential is another key factor for the dynamics of the condensate, as well as for its collective modes. The asymmetry of the confining potential leads to important nonlinear effects, including resonances in the frequencies of collective modes of the condensate. We study in detail such geometric resonances and derive explicit analytic results for frequency shifts for the case of an axially symmetric condensate with two- and three-body interactions. Analytically obtained results are verified by extensive numerical simulations.

Quantum Phase Transition in an Antiferromagnetic Spinor Bose-Einstein Condensate

We have experimentally observed the dynamics of an antiferromagnetic sodium Bose-Einstein condensate quenched through a quantum phase transition. Using an off-resonant microwave field coupling the F = 1 and F = 2 atomic hyperfine levels, we rapidly switched the quadratic energy shift q from positive to negative values. At q = 0, the system undergoes a transition from a polar to antiferromagnetic phase. We measured the dynamical evolution of the population in the F = 1, mF = 0 state in the vicinity of this transition point and observed a mixed state of all 3 hyperfine components for q < 0. We also observed the coarsening dynamics of the instability for q < 0, as it nucleated small domains that grew to the axial size of the cloud.

Rabi Flopping Induces Spatial Demixing Dynamics

We experimentally investigate the mixing and demixing dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates in the presence of a linear coupling between two internal states. The observed amplitude reduction of the Rabi oscillations can be understood as a result of demixing dynamics of dressed states as experimentally confirmed by reconstructing the spatial profile of dressed state amplitudes. The observations are in quantitative agreement with numerical integration of coupled Gross-Pitaevskii equations without free parameters, which also reveals the criticality of the dynamics on the symmetry of the system. Our observations demonstrate new possibilities for changing effective atomic interactions and studying critical phenomena.

Splitting dynamics of a two-species Bose-Einstein condensate in two translating traps

Abstract We extend our previous work of splitting a single-species Bose-Einstein condensate in two translating traps to a two-species condensate. Different from the single species case where interaction is considered as a damping mechanism to the motion of the condensate, we find that, in the two species case, the damping effect is much less obvious and the splitting dynamics exhibit different behaviors. The distribution of each component are not damped towards 50:50 for large interaction strength in the two wells. Our conclusions are supported by investigating the dependence of the splitting on both the translation speed and the interspecies scattering length.

Localization of Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices

Abstract The dynamics of repulsive bosons condensed in an optical lattice is effectively described by the Bose-Hubbard model. The classical limit of this model, reproduces the dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates, in a periodic potential, and in the superfluid regime. Such dynamics is governed by a discrete nonlinear Schrödinger equation. Several papers, addressing the study of the discrete nonlinear Schrödinger dynamics, have predicted the spontaneous generation of (classical) breathers in coupled condensates. In the present contribute, we shall focus on localized solutions (quantum breathers) of the full Bose-Hubbard model. We will show that solutions exponentially localized in space and periodic in time exist also in absence of randomness. Thus, this kind of states, reproduce a novel quantum localization phenomenon due to the interplay between bounded energy spectrum and non-linearity.