20,625 research outputs found
Vortex macroscopic superpositions in ultracold bosons in a double-well potential
We study macroscopic superpositions in the orbital rather than the spatial
degrees of freedom, in a three-dimensional double-well system. We show that the
ensuing dynamics of interacting excited ultracold bosons, which in general
requires at least eight single-particle modes and Fock
vectors, is described by a surprisingly small set of many-body states. An
initial state with half the atoms in each well, and purposely excited in one of
them, gives rise to the tunneling of axisymmetric and transverse vortex
structures. We show that transverse vortices tunnel orders of magnitude faster
than axisymmetric ones and are therefore more experimentally accessible. The
tunneling process generates macroscopic superpositions only distinguishable by
their orbital properties and within experimentally realistic times.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure
Bose-Einstein condensates in standing waves: The cubic nonlinear Schroedinger equation with a periodic potential
We present a new family of stationary solutions to the cubic nonlinear
Schroedinger equation with a Jacobian elliptic function potential. In the limit
of a sinusoidal potential our solutions model a dilute gas Bose-Einstein
condensate trapped in a standing light wave. Provided the ratio of the height
of the variations of the condensate to its DC offset is small enough, both
trivial phase and nontrivial phase solutions are shown to be stable. Numerical
simulations suggest such stationary states are experimentally observable.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
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