Giovanni Mazzarella

Atomic Josephson junction with two bosonic species

We study an atomic Josephson junction (AJJ) in the presence of two interacting Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) confined in a double-well trap. We assume that bosons of different species interact with each other. The macroscopic wavefunctions of the two components obey a system of two 3D coupled Gross–Pitaevskii equations (GPEs). We write the Lagrangian of the system, and from this we derive a system of coupled ordinary differential equations (ODEs), for which the coupled pendula represent the mechanical analogues. These differential equations control the dynamical behaviour of the fractional imbalance and of the relative phase of each bosonic component. We perform the stability analysis around the points which preserve the symmetry and get an analytical formula for the oscillation frequency around the stable points. Such a formula could be used as an indirect measure of the inter-species s-wave scattering length. We also study the oscillations of each fractional imbalance around zero and nonzero—the macroscopic quantum self-trapping (MQST)—time averaged values. For different values of the inter-species interaction amplitude, we carry out this study both by directly solving the two GPEs and by solving the corresponding coupled pendula equations. We show that, under certain conditions, the predictions of these two approaches are in good agreement. Moreover, we calculate the crossover value of the inter-species interaction amplitude which signals the onset of MQST.

Nonlinear quantum model for atomic Josephson junctions with one and two bosonic species

We study atomic Josephson junctions (AJJs) with one and two bosonic species confined by a double-well potential. Proceeding from the second quantized Hamiltonian, we show that it is possible to describe the zero-temperature AJJ microscopic dynamics by means of extended Bose–Hubbard (EBH) models, which include usually neglected nonlinear terms. Within the mean-field approximation, the Heisenberg equations derived from such two-mode models provide a description of AJJ macroscopic dynamics in terms of ordinary differential equations (ODEs). We discuss the possibility of distinguishing the Rabi, Josephson and Fock regimes in terms of the macroscopic parameters which appear in the EBH Hamiltonians, and then in the ODEs. We compare the predictions for the relative populations of the Bose gas atoms in the two wells obtained from the numerical solutions of the two-mode ODEs, with those deriving from the direct numerical integration of the Gross–Pitaevskii equations (GPEs). Our investigations show that the nonlinear terms of the ODEs are crucial to achieve a good agreement between the ODE and GPE approaches, and in particular to give quantitative predictions of the self-trapping regime.

Josephson physics of spin-orbit-coupled elongated Bose-Einstein condensates

We consider an ultracold bosonic binary mixture confined in a quasi-one-dimensional double-well trap. The two bosonic components are assumed to be two hyperfine internal states of the same atom. We suppose that these two components are spin-orbit coupled to each other. We employ the two-mode approximation starting from two coupled Gross-Pitaevskii equations and derive a system of ordinary differential equations governing the temporal evolution of the interwell population imbalance of each component and of the polarization, which is the imbalance of the total populations of the two species. From this set of equations we disentangle the different macroscopic quantum tunneling and self-trapping scenarios occurring for both population imbalances and the polarization in terms of the interplay between the interatomic interactions and the other relevant energies in the problem, like the spin-orbit coupling or the conventional tunneling term. We find a rich dynamics in all three variables and discuss the experimental feasibility of such a system.

Rabi–Josephson oscillations and self-trapped dynamics in atomic junctions with two bosonic species

We investigate the dynamics of two-component Bose?Einstein condensates, composed of atoms in two distinct hyperfine states, which are linearly coupled by two-photon Raman transitions. The condensate is loaded into a double-well potential. A variety of dynamical behaviour, ranging from regular Josephson oscillations to mixed Rabi?Josephson oscillations and to regimes featuring increasing complexity are described in terms of a reduced Hamiltonian system with four degrees of freedoms, which are the numbers of atoms in each component in the left and right potential wells, whose canonically conjugate variables are phases of the corresponding wavefunctions. Using the system with four degrees of freedom, we study the dynamics of fractional imbalances of the two bosonic components and compare the results to direct simulations of the Gross?Pitaevskii equations describing the bosonic mixture. We perform this analysis when the fractional imbalance oscillates around a zero-time averaged value and in the self-trapping regime as well.

Entanglement entropy and macroscopic quantum states with dipolar bosons in a triple-well potential

We study interacting dipolar atomic bosons in a triple-well potential within a ring geometry. This system is shown to be equivalent to a three-site Bose-Hubbard model. We analyze the ground state of dipolar bosons by varying the effective on-site interaction. This analysis is performed both numerically and analytically by using suitable coherent-state representations of the ground state. The latter exhibits a variety of forms ranging from the SU(3) coherent state in the delocalization regime to a macroscopic catlike state with fully localized populations, passing for a coexistence regime where the ground state displays a mixed character. We characterize the quantum correlations of the ground state from the bipartition perspective. We calculate both numerically and analytically (within the previous coherent-state representation) the single-site entanglement entropy which, among various interesting properties, exhibits a maximum value in correspondence to the transition from the catlike to the coexistence regime. In the latter case, we show that the ground-state mixed form corresponds, semiclassically, to an energy exhibiting two almost-degenerate minima

Tunneling dynamics of bosonic Josephson junctions assisted by a cavity field

We study the interplay between the dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a double-well potential and that of an optical cavity mode. The cavity field is superimposed to the double-well potential and affects the atomic tunneling processes. The cavity field is driven by a laser red detuned from the bare cavity resonance; the dynamically changing spatial distribution of the atoms can shift the cavity in and out of resonance. At resonance the photon number is hugely enhanced and the atomic tunneling becomes amplified. The Josephson-junction equations are revisited and the phase diagram is calculated. We find solutions with finite imbalance and at the same time find a lack of self-trapping solutions due to the emergence of a new separatrix resulting from enhanced tunneling.

Delocalization effects, entanglement entropy and spectral collapse of boson mixtures in a double well

We investigate the ground-state properties of a two-species condensate of interacting bosons in a double-well potential. Each atomic species is described by a two-space-mode Bose-Hubbard model. The coupling of the two species is controlled by the interspecies interaction

Tuning Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit couplings: Effects on singlet and triplet condensation with Fermi atoms

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How the effective boson-boson interaction works in Bose-Fermi mixtures in periodic geometries

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Quantum Correlations of Few Dipolar Bosons in a Double-Well Trap

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