English

Driven Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling of Ultracold Atoms in Engineered Optical Lattices

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2007-05-23 v1 Superconductivity Pattern Formation and Solitons Atomic Physics

Abstract

Coherent macroscopic tunneling of a Bose-Einstein condensate between two parts of an optical lattice separated by an energy barrier is theoretically investigated. We show that by a pulsewise change of the barrier height, it is possible to switch between tunneling regime and a self-trapped state of the condensate. This property of the system is explained by effectively reducing the dynamics to the nonlinear problem of a particle moving in a double square well potential. The analysis is made for both attractive and repulsive interatomic forces, and it highlights the experimental relevance of our findings.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0610014,
  title  = {Driven Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling of Ultracold Atoms in Engineered Optical Lattices},
  author = {Ramaz Khomeriki and Stefano Ruffo and Sandro Wimberger},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0610014},
  year   = {2007}
}