Nondispersive two-electron wave packets in driven helium

We provide a detailed quantum treatment of the spectral characteristics and of the dynamics of nondispersive two-electron wave packets along the periodically driven, collinear frozen planet configuration of helium. These highly correlated, long-lived wave packets arise as a quantum manifestation of regular islands in a mixed classical phase space, which are induced by nonlinear resonances between the external driving and the unperturbed dynamics of the frozen-planet configuration. Particular emphasis is given to the dependence of the ionization rates of the wave packet states on the driving field parameters and on the quantum mechanical phase space resolution, preceded by a comparison of 1D and 3D life times of the unperturbed frozen planet. Furthermore, we study the effect of a superimposed static electric field component, which, on the grounds of classical considerations, is expected to stabilize the real 3D dynamics against large (and possibly ionizing) deviations from collinearity.Comment: 31 pages, 18 figures, submitted to European Physical Journal

Elastic and inelastic transmission in guided atom lasers: a truncated Wigner approach

We study the transport properties of an ultracold gas of Bose-Einstein condensate that is coupled from a magnetic trap into a one-dimensional waveguide. Our theoretical approach to tackle this problem is based on the truncated Wigner method for which we assume the system to consist of two semi-infinite non-interacting leads and a finite interacting scattering region with two constrictions modelling an atomic quantum dot. The transmission is computed in the steady-state regime and we find a good agreement between truncated Wigner and Matrix-Product State calculations. We also identify clear signatures of inelastic resonant scattering by analyzing the distribution of energy in the transmitted atomic matter wave beam.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Effects of short-range interactions on transport through quantum point contacts: A numerical approach

We study electronic transport through a quantum point contact, where the interaction between the electrons is approximated by a contact potential. Our numerical approach is based on the non-equilibrium Green function technique which is evaluated at Hartree-Fock level. We show that this approach allows us to reproduce relevant features of the so-called "0.7 anomaly" observed in the conductance at low temperatures, including the characteristic features in recent shot noise measurements. This is consistent with a spin-splitting interpretation of the process, and indicates that the "0.7 anomaly" should also be observable in transport experiments with ultracold fermionic atoms.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figure

Waveguides for walking droplets

When gently placing a droplet onto a vertically vibrated bath, a drop can bounce without coalescing. Upon increasing the forcing acceleration, the droplet is propelled by the wave it generates and becomes a walker with a well defined speed. We investigate the confinement of a walker in different rectangular cavities, used as waveguides for the Faraday waves emitted by successive droplet bounces. By studying the walker velocities, we discover that 1d confinement is optimal for narrow channels of width of $D \simeq 1.5 \lambda_F$. We also propose an analogy with waveguide models based on the observation of the Faraday instability within the channels.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

NOON states with ultracold bosonic atoms via resonance- and chaos-assisted tunneling

We theoretically investigate the generation of microscopic atomic NOON states, corresponding to the coherent |N,0> + |0,N> superposition with N ~ 5 particles, via collective tunneling of interacting ultracold bosonic atoms within a symmetric double-well potential in the self-trapping regime. We show that a periodic driving of the double well with suitably tuned amplitude and frequency parameters allows one to substantially boost this tunneling process without altering its collective character. The time scale to generate the NOON superposition, which corresponds to half the tunneling time and would be prohibitively large in the undriven double well for the considered atomic populations, can thereby be drastically reduced, which renders the realization of NOON states through this protocol experimentally feasible. Resonance- and chaos-assisted tunneling are identified as key mechanisms in this context. A quantitative semiclassical evaluation of their impact onto the collective tunneling process allows one to determine the optimal choice for the driving parameters in order to generate those NOON states as fast as possible.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure

Many-Body Spin Echo

We predict a universal echo phenomenon present in the time evolution of many-body states of interacting quantum systems described by Fermi-Hubbard models. It consists of the coherent revival of transition probabilities echoing a sudden flip of the spins that, contrary to its single-particle (Hahn) version, is not dephased by interactions or spin-orbit coupling. The many-body spin echo signal has a universal shape independent of the interaction strength, and an amplitude and sign depending only on combinatorial relations between the number of particles and the number of applied spin flips. Our analytical predictions, based on semiclassical interfering amplitudes in Fock space associated with chaotic mean-field solutions, are tested against extensive numerical simulations confirming that the coherent origin of the echo lies in the existence of anti-unitary symmetries.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Intensity distribution of non-linear scattering states

We investigate the interplay between coherent effects characteristic of the propagation of linear waves, the non-linear effects due to interactions, and the quantum manifestations of classical chaos due to geometrical confinement, as they arise in the context of the transport of Bose-Einstein condensates. We specifically show that, extending standard methods for non-interacting systems, the body of the statistical distribution of intensities for scattering states solving the Gross-Pitaevskii equation is very well described by a local Gaussian ansatz with a position-dependent variance. We propose a semiclassical approach based on interfering classical paths to fix the single parameter describing the universal deviations from a global Gaussian distribution. Being tail effects, rare events like rogue waves characteristic of non-linear field equations do not affect our results.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Proceedings MARIBOR 201

Nonlinear dynamical tunneling of optical whispering gallery modes in the presence of a Kerr nonlinearity

The effect of a Kerr nonlinearity on dynamical tunneling is studied, using coupled whispering gallery modes in an optical microcavity. The model system that we have chosen is the 'add-drop filter', which comprises an optical microcavity and two waveguide coupled to the cavity. Due to the evanescent field's scattering on the waveguide, the whispering gallery modes in the microcavity form doublets, which manifest themselves as splittings in the spectrum. As these doublets can be regarded as a spectral feature of dynamical tunneling between two different dynamical states with a spatial overlap, the effect of a Kerr nonlinearity on the doublets is numerically investigated in the more general context of the relationship between cubic nonlinearity and dynamical tunneling. Within the numerical realization of the model system, it is observed that the doublets shows a bistable transition in its transmission curve as the Kerr-nonlinearity in the cavity is increased. At the same time, one rotational mode gets dominant over the other one in the transmission, since the two states in the doublet have uneven linewidths. By using coupled mode theory, the underlying mode dynamics of the phenomena is theoretically modelled and clarified.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Faraday instability and subthreshold Faraday waves: surface waves emitted by walkers

A walker is a fluid entity comprising a bouncing droplet coupled to the waves that it generates at the surface of a vibrated bath. Thanks to this coupling, walkers exhibit a series of wave-particle features formerly thought to be exclusive to the quantum realm. In this paper, we derive a model of the Faraday surface waves generated by an impact upon a vertically vibrated liquid surface. We then particularise this theoretical framework to the case of forcing slightly below the Faraday instability threshold. Among others, this theory yields a rationale for the dependence of the wave amplitude to the phase of impact, as well as the characteristic timescale and length scale of viscous damping. The theory is validated with experiments of bead impact on a vibrated bath. We finally discuss implications of these results for the analogy between walkers and quantum particles

Influence of classical resonances on chaotic tunnelling

Dynamical tunnelling between symmetry-related stable modes is studied in the periodically driven pendulum. We present strong evidence that the tunnelling process is governed by nonlinear resonances that manifest within the regular phase-space islands on which the stable modes are localized. By means of a quantitative numerical study of the corresponding Floquet problem, we identify the trace of such resonances not only in the level splittings between near-degenerate quantum states, where they lead to prominent plateau structures, but also in overlap matrix elements of the Floquet eigenstates, which reveal characteristic sequences of avoided crossings in the Floquet spectrum. The semiclassical theory of resonance-assisted tunnelling yields good overall agreement with the quantum-tunnelling rates, and indicates that partial barriers within the chaos might play a prominent role