Nonlinear Josephson-type oscillations of a driven, two-component Bose-Einstein condensate

Abstract

We propose an experiment that would demonstrate nonlinear Josephson-type oscillations in the relative population of a driven, two-component Bose-Einstein condensate. An initial state is prepared in which two condensates exist in a magnetic trap, each in a different hyperfine state, where the initial populations and relative phase between condensates can be controlled within experimental uncertainty. A weak driving field is then applied, which couples the two internal states of the atom and consequently transfers atoms back and forth between condensates. We present a model of this system and investigate the effect of the mean field on the dynamical evolution.

Spinor Condensates and Light Scattering from Bose-Einstein Condensates

“…The Boulder group has also explored the nature of multi-component condensates in the presence of continuous resonant and non-resonant rf coupling between the components. Such coupling links the external center-of-mass and the internal degrees of freedom of the condensed gas and gives rise to a rich variety of dynamical effects such as Josephson-type oscillations [87] and spin-wave excitations [88,89], as well as new techniques for manipulating the phase of the condensate wavefunction [90,91]. Some of this work is reviewed in Refs.…”

“…This allowed for the creation of multi-component condensates by the simultaneous magnetic confinement of 87 Rb atoms in the |F = 1, m F = −1 and |F = 2, m F = 2 [81] (and, in later work, |F = 2, m F = 1 ) states. The Boulder group has used magnetically trapped multi-component condensates for a remarkable series of experiments.…”

“…Spinor Bose condensates differ from other multi-component Bose condensates, such as the experimentally realized 87 Rb mixtures or the proposed mixtures of several atomic species, in important ways stemming from symmetries under rotations of the vectorial order parameter. Furthermore, spin relaxation collisions within the lower F = 1 hyperfine manifold…”

“…However, it was recently found that magnetically-trapped multi-component gases of 87 Rb are quite long lived due to a fortunate near-equality of the singlet and triplet scattering lengths which greatly suppresses the spin exchange collision rate [81][82][83][84]. This allowed for the creation of multi-component condensates by the simultaneous magnetic confinement of 87 Rb atoms in the |F = 1, m F = −1 and |F = 2, m F = 2 [81] (and, in later work, |F = 2, m F = 1 ) states.…”

Soliton nanoantennas in two-dimensional arrays of quantum dots

“…In particular, the linear coupling between two polarization modes in each core of a waveguide array may be induced by a twist of the core (for linear polarizations), or by the birefringence (for circular polarizations). On the other hand, in the BEC the linear coupling may be imposed by an external microwave or radio-frequency field, which can drive Rabi oscillations [7,8] or Josephson oscillations [9,10] between two boson populations. In terms of the dynamical analysis, an essential issue is the possibility of the spontaneous symmetry breaking in linearly coupled discrete systems [11].…”