Collective Tunnelling of Strongly Interacting Cold Atoms in a Double-Well Potential |
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Authors: | Dmitri Sokolovski Xavier Gutiérrez de la Cal Marisa Pons |
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Institution: | 1. Departmento de Química-Física, Facultad de Ciencia y Tecnología, Universidad del País Vasco, Campus de Leioa, Barrio de Sarriena, s/n, 48940 Leioa, Bizkaia, Spain;2. Departmento de Física Aplicada I, Universidad del País Vasco, UPV/EHU, Alameda Urquijo, s/n, 48013 Bilbao, Spain;3. Departmento de Física Aplicada I, Universidad del País Vasco, UPV/EHU, Bilbao, Spain |
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Abstract: | It is known that under resonance conditions, a group of strongly interacting bosonic atoms, trapped in a double-well potential, mimics a single particle, performing Rabi oscillations between the wells. By implication, all atoms need to tunnel at roughly the same time, even though the Bose–Hubbard Hamiltonian accounts only for one-atom-at-a-time transfers. The mechanism of this collective behavior is analyzed, the Rabi frequencies in the process are evaluated, and the limitation of this simple picture is discussed. In particular, it is shown that the small rapid oscillations superimposed on the slow Rabi cycle result from splitting the transferred cluster at the sudden onset of tunnelling, and disappear if tunnelling is turned on gradually. |
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Keywords: | bosonic cold atoms many-body quantum tunnelling time-dependent perturbation theory |
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