Bose-Einstein condensate in a double-well potential as an open quantum system
Abstract
We study the dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a double-well potential in the two-mode approximation. The dissipation of energy from the condensate is described by the coupling to a thermal reservoir of non-condensate modes. As a consequence of the coupling the self-locked population imbalance in the macroscopic quantum self-trapping decays away. We show that a coherent state predicted by spontaneous symmetry breaking is not robust and decoheres rapidly into a statistical mixture due to the interactions between condensate and non-condensate atoms. However, via stochastic simulations we find that with a sufficiently fast measurement rate of the relative phase between the two wells the matter wave coherence is established even in the presence of the decoherence.
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/9803298,
title = {Bose-Einstein condensate in a double-well potential as an open quantum system},
author = {Janne Ruostekoski and Dan F. Walls},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/9803298},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
4 pages, RevTex, 5 postscript figures