Producing Bose-Einstein condensates using optical lattices

We relate the entropies of ensembles of atoms in optical lattices to atoms in simple traps. We then determine which ensembles of lattice-bound atoms will adiabatically transform into a Bose condensate. This shows a feasible approach to Bose condensation without evaporative cooling.     

Bose-Einstein condensates in 1D optical lattices

We discuss the Bloch-state solutions of the stationary Gross-Pitaevskii equation and of the Bogoliubov equations for a Bose-Einstein condensate in the presence of a one-dimensional optical lattice. The results for the compressibility, effective mass and velocity of sound are analysed as a function of the lattice depth and of the strength of the two-body interaction. The band structure of the spectrum of elementary excitations is compared with the one exhibited by the stationary solutions (Bloch bands). Moreover, the numerical calculations are compared with the analytic predictions of the tight binding approximation. We also discuss the role of quantum fluctuations and show that the condensate exhibits 3D, 2D or 1D features depending on the lattice depth and on the number of particles occupying each potential well. We finally show how, using a local density approximation, our results can be applied to study the behaviour of the gas in the presence of harmonic trapping.Received: 15 July 2003, Published online: 8 October 2003PACS: 03.75.Kk Dynamic properties of condensates; collective and hydrodynamic excitations, superfluid flow - 03.75.Lm Tunneling, Josephson effect, Bose-Einstein condensates in periodic potentials, solitons, vortices and topological excitations     

Localization of Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices

The dynamics of repulsive bosons condensed in an optical lattice is effectively described by the Bose-Hubbard model. The classical limit of this model, reproduces the dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates, in a periodic potential, and in the superfluid regime. Such dynamics is governed by a discrete nonlinear Schrödinger equation. Several papers, addressing the study of the discrete nonlinear Schrödinger dynamics, have predicted the spontaneous generation of (classical) breathers in coupled condensates. In the present contribute, we shall focus on localized solutions (quantum breathers) of the full Bose-Hubbard model. We will show that solutions exponentially localized in space and periodic in time exist also in absence of randomness. Thus, this kind of states, reproduce a novel quantum localization phenomenon due to the interplay between bounded energy spectrum and non-linearity.     

Delocalizing transition of Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices

A Bose-Einstein condensate trapped in a two-dimensional optical lattice exhibits an abrupt transition manifested by the macroscopic wave function changing character from spatially localized to extended. Resulting from a bifurcation, this irreversible transition takes place as the interwell potential barrier is adiabatically decreased below a critical value. This is in sharp contrast to the corresponding one-dimensional case where such a bifurcation is absent and the extent of a localized mode is continuously tunable. We demonstrate how these phenomena can be experimentally explored.     

Localization of two-component Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices

We study nonlinear localization of a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in a one-dimensional optical lattice. Our theory shows that spin-dependent optical lattices can be used to effectively manipulate the nonlinear interactions between the BEC components, and to observe composite localized states of a BEC in both bands and gaps of the matter-wave spectrum.     

Instability of Bose-Einstein condensates moving in optical lattices

We investigate the Landau damping of Bogoliubov excitations in a dilute Bose gas moving in an optical lattice at a finite temperature. Using a 1D tight-binding model, we explicitly obtain the Landau damping rate, the sign of which determines the stability of the condensate. We find that the sign changes at a certain velocity, which is exactly the same as the critical velocity determined by the Landau criterion of superfluidity. This coincidence reveals the microscopic mechanism of the Landau instability.     

Impurity-induced localization of Bose-Einstein condensates in one-dimensional optical lattices

The impurity-induced localization of two-component Bose-Einstein condensates loaded into deep one-dimensional optical lattices is studied both analytically and numerically.It is shown that,the analytical criteria for self-trapping and moving soliton/breather of the primary-component condensate are modified significantly by an admixture of an impurity component (the second component).The realization of the self-trapped state and the moving soliton/breather states of the primary-component becomes more easy with the minor admixture of the impurity-component,even if the two components are partly overlapped.     

Classical chaos with Bose-Einstein condensates in tilted optical lattices

A widely accepted definition of "quantum chaos" is "the behavior of a quantum system whose classical limit is chaotic." The dynamics of quantum-chaotic systems is nevertheless very different from that of their classical counterparts. A fundamental reason for that is the linearity of Schr?dinger equation. In this paper, we study the quantum dynamics of an ultracold quantum degenerate gas in a tilted optical lattice and show that it displays features very close to classical chaos. We show that its phase space is organized according to the Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser theorem.     

Spatiotemporal dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates in moving optical lattices

Spatiotemporal dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates in moving optical lattices have been studied. For a weak lattice potential, the perturbed correction to the heteroclinic orbit in a repulsive system is constructed. We find the boundedness conditions of the perturbed correction contain the Melnikov chaotic criterion predicting the onset of Smale-horseshoe chaos. The effect of the chemical potential on the spatiotemporal dynamics is numerically investigated. It is revealed that the variance of the chemical potential can lead the systems into chaos. Regulating the intensity of the lattice potential can efficiently suppress the chaos resulting from the variance of the chemical potential. And then the effect of the phenomenological dissipation is considered. Numerical calculation reveals that the chaos in the dissipative system can be suppressed by adjusting the chemical potential and the intensity of the lattice potential.     

Driving defect modes of Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices

We present an approximate analytical theory and direct numerical computation of defect modes of a Bose-Einstein condensate loaded in an optical lattice and subject to an additional localized (defect) potential. Some of the modes are found to be remarkably stable and can be driven along the lattice by means of a defect moving following a steplike function defined by the period of Josephson oscillations and the macroscopic stability of the atoms.     

Self-localisation of dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates in leaking optical lattices

We investigate self-localisation of dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) in 1D nonlinear lattices via boundary dissipation in a dissipative nonlinear Schrödinger model (DNLS) with nearest-neighbour dipole-dipole interactions (DDI). By including both contact interactions and DDIs, we observe that a rich variety of self-localised modes (i.e., single discrete breathers, moving breathers and multi-breathers) can exist in dipolar systems in optical lattices. Furthermore, we find that DDIs can suppress the formation of single discrete breathers and support the formation of multi-breathers. Our results show that including both contact interactions and DDIs may provide a way to experimentally obtain stationary multi-breathers in optical lattices via boundary dissipations.     

Soliton-sound interactions in quasi-one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates

Longitudinal confinement of dark solitons in quasi-one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates leads to sound emission and reabsorption. We perform quantitative studies of the dynamics of a soliton oscillating in a tight dimple trap, embedded in a weaker harmonic trap. The dimple depth provides a sensitive handle to control the soliton-sound interaction. In the limit of no reabsorption, the power radiated is found to be proportional to the soliton acceleration squared. An experiment is proposed to detect sound emission as a change in amplitude and frequency of soliton oscillations.     

Rydberg excitation of Bose-Einstein condensates

Rydberg atoms provide a wide range of possibilities to tailor interactions in a quantum gas. Here, we report on Rydberg excitation of Bose-Einstein condensed 87Rb atoms. The Rydberg fraction was investigated for various excitation times and temperatures above and below the condensation temperature. The excitation is locally blocked by the van der Waals interaction between Rydberg atoms to a density-dependent limit. Therefore, the abrupt change of the thermal atomic density distribution to the characteristic bimodal distribution upon condensation could be observed in the Rydberg fraction. The observed features are reproduced by a simulation based on local collective Rydberg excitations.     

Bose-Einstein condensates in rotating lattices

Strongly interacting bosons in a two-dimensional rotating square lattice are investigated via a modified Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian. Such a system corresponds to a rotating lattice potential imprinted on a trapped Bose-Einstein condensate. Second-order quantum phase transitions between states of different symmetries are observed at discrete rotation rates. For the square lattice we study, there are four possible ground-state symmetries.     

Self-localization of Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices via boundary dissipation

We introduce a technique to obtain localization of Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices via boundary dissipations. Stationary and traveling localized states are generated by removing atoms at the optical lattice ends. Clear regimes of stretched-exponential decay for the number of atoms trapped in the lattice are identified. The phenomenon is universal and can also be observed in arrays of optical waveguides with mirrors at the system boundaries.     

Analytical studies of two-component Bose-Einstein condensates in two-dimensional optical lattices

The two-component Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) trapped in 2D optical lattice potential is studied analytically. A new family of stationary exact solutions of the coupled Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) equations with 2D periodic potential are obtained. In particular, the phase diagram of the system in the trigonometric limit is determined analytically according to the nontrivial phase macroscopic wave functions of the condensates.     

Quantum tunneling of Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices under gravity

We investigate the quantum tunneling of Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices under gravity in the "Wannier-Stark localization" regime and "Landau-Zener tunneling" regime. Our results agree with experimental data [B. P. Anderson et al., Science 282, 1686 (1998); F. S. Cataliotti et al., Science 293, 843 (2001)]. We obtain the total decay rate which is valid over the entire range of temperatures, and show how it reduces to the appropriate results for the classical thermal activation at high temperatures, the thermally assisted tunneling at intermediate temperatures, and the pure quantum tunneling at low temperatures. We design an experimental protocol to observe this new phenomenon in further experiments.     

Disordered Bose-Einstein condensates in quasi-one-dimensional magnetic microtraps

We analyze the effects of a random magnetic potential in a microfabricated waveguide for ultracold atoms. We find that the shape and position fluctuations of a current carrying wire induce a strong Gaussian correlated random potential with a length scale set by the atom-wire separation. The theory is used to explain quantitatively the observed fragmentation of the Bose-Einstein condensates in atomic waveguides. Furthermore, we show that nonlinear dynamics can be used to provide important insights into the nature of the strongly fragmented condensates. We argue that a quantum phase transition from the superfluid to the insulating Bose glass phase may be reached and detected under the realistic experimental conditions.     

运动光格中玻色-爱因斯坦凝聚系统的混沌时空动力学

本文研究了运动光格中原子间呈排斥作用的玻色-爱因斯坦凝聚系统的混沌时空动力学。通过理论分析,我们得到了具有简单零点的Melnikov函数,这表明系统存在Smale马蹄混沌。数值模拟显示,在一定的参数条件下,光格势强度的增大或s波散射长度的减小,都将迫使系统由规则状态进入混沌状态。     

The dynamics and stabilities of Bose-Einstein condensates in deep optical lattices

The dynamics and stabilities of Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) trapped in a deep one-dimensional periodic optical lattices with three-body interactions are investigated. By using the tight-binding approximation, the Bloch and the Bogoliubov excitation stabilities and the dynamics of the BEC wavepacket with the effects of the three-body interactions are studied. The critical conditions for occurrence of the dynamical/Landau instabilities, self-trapping/diffusion/breather of wavepacket, and localized soliton are obtained analytically. The results show that the boundaries of the dynamical instability and Landau instability are modified significantly due to the presence of the three-body interactions. It is also revealed that, the initial wavepacket width, the initial momentum, especially, the strength of the three-body force have strong effect on the critical conditions which are used to describe the dynamics of the wavepacket. It is shown that the regions of self-trapping, diffusion, and breather for BEC wavepacket in the parameter space are modified dramatically by the three-body interactions. The analytical results are confirmed by the direct numerical solutions of the discrete GPE.