Quantum switching at a mean-field instability of a Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical lattice

It is shown that bifurcations of the mean-field dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate can be related with the quantum phase transitions of the original many-body system. As an example we explore the intra-band tunneling in the two-dimensional optical lattice. Such a system allows for easy control by the lattice depth as well as for macroscopic visualization of the phase transition. The system manifests switching between two selftrapping states or from a selftrapping state to a superposition of the macroscopically populated selftrapping states with the step-like variation of the control parameter about the bifurcation point. We have also observed the magnification of the microscopic difference between the even and odd number of atoms to a macroscopically distinguishable dynamics of the system.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures (2 in color

Nonlinear modes in finite-dimensional PT-symmetric systems

By rearrangements of waveguide arrays with gain and losses one can simulate transformations among parity-time (PT-) symmetric systems not affecting their pure real linear spectra. Subject to such transformations, however, the nonlinear properties of the systems undergo significant changes. On an example of an array of four waveguides described by the discrete nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation with dissipation and gain, we show that the equivalence of the underlying linear spectra implies similarity of neither structure nor stability of the nonlinear modes in the arrays. Even the existence of one-parametric families of nonlinear modes is not guaranteed by the PT symmetry of a newly obtained system. Neither the stability is directly related to the PT symmetry: stable nonlinear modes exist even when the spectrum of the linear array is not purely real. We use graph representation of PT-symmetric networks allowing for simple illustration of linearly equivalent networks and indicating on their possible experimental design.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, accepted to Phys. Rev. Let

Acceleration and localization of matter in a ring trap

A toroidal trap combined with external time-dependent electric field can be used for implementing different dynamical regimes of matter waves. In particular, we show that dynamical and stochastic acceleration, localization and implementation of the Kapitza pendulum can be originated by means of proper choice of the external force