Coupling between Collective Excitations of a Bose--Einstein Condensate and Modulated Interactions

We investigate collective excitations of a Bose Einstein repulsive interactions, and analytically demonstrate that condensate in the presence of temporal modulation of the modulated interaction can drive the condensate to oscillate with the external modulation frequency, and that the interaction couples with the eigen modes of the condensate collective excitations, which was previously considered to be independent of interaction. When the external modulation frequency approaches or is far away from the eigen frequency of the density monopole mode, the condensate shows resonant or beating behaviour.     

Bose-Einstein condensates with a bent vortex in rotating traps

We consider a 3D dilute Bose-Einstein condensate at thermal equilibrium in a rotating harmonic trap. The condensate wavefunction is a local minimum of the Gross-Pitaevskii energy functional and we determine it numerically with the very efficient conjugate gradient method. For single vortex configurations in a cigar-shaped harmonic trap we find that the vortex line is bent, in agreement with the numerical prediction of Garcia-Ripoll and Perez-Garcia [Phys. Rev. A 63, 041603 (2001)]. We derive a simple energy functional for the vortex line in a cigar-shaped condensate which allows to understand physically why the vortex line bends and to predict analytically the minimal rotation frequency required to stabilize the bent vortex line. This analytical prediction is in excellent agreement with the numerical results. It also allows to find in a simple way a saddle point of the energy, where the vortex line is in a stationary configuration in the rotating frame but not a local minimum of energy. Finally we investigate numerically the effect of thermal fluctuations on the vortex line for a condensate with a straight vortex: we can predict what happens in a single realization of the experiment by a Monte Carlo sampling of an atomic field quasi-distribution function of the density operator of the gas at thermal equilibrium in the Bogoliubov approximation. Received 28 March 2002 / Received in final form 13 September 2002 Published online 21 January 2003 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: yvan.castin@lkb.ens.fr     

Modulating the amplitude of dark soliton by scattering-length management in Bose-Einstein condensates

We present a family of soliton solutions of the quasi-one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates with time-dependent scattering length, by developing multiple-scale method combined with truncated Painlevé expansion. Then, by numerical calculating the solutions, it is shown that there exhibit two types of dark solitons—black soliton (the zero minimum amplitude at its center) and gray soliton (the minimum density does not drop to zero) in a repulsive condensate. Furthermore, we propose experimental protocols to realize the exchange between black and gray solitons by varying the scattering length via the Feshbach resonance in currently experimental conditions.     

Coherent states and quantum oscillations of BEC-BCS systems

We show by using the mean-field approximation that the states of composite Fermi-Bose superfluids created in cold-atom traps via a Feshbach resonance at zero temperature are generalized SU(2)⊗SU(1,1) coherent states. In response to a sudden change of the interaction between fermionic atoms and bosonic molecules, a Cooper pair can exhibit collapse and revival quantum behaviors for an initial generalized coherent state of molecules, and Rabi oscillation for a vacuum molecular state. Occurrence of the collapse and revival phenomenon is thus the manifestation of the formation of the Bose-Einstein condensate.     

Influence of global features of a Bose-Einstein condensate on the vortex velocity

We study the way in which the geometry of the trapping potential affects the vortex velocity in a Bose-Einstein condensate confined by a toroidal trap. We calculate the vortex precession velocity through a simple relationship between such a velocity and the gradient of the numerically obtained vortex energy. We observe that our results correspond very closely to the velocity calculated through time evolution simulations. However, we find that the estimates derived from available velocity field formulas present appreciable differences. To resolve such discrepancies, we further study the induced velocity field, analyzing the effect of global features of the condensate on such a field and on the precession velocity.     

Quantum dynamics of atomic coherence in a spin-1 condensate: Mean-field versus many-body simulation

We analyse and numerically simulate the full many-body quantum dynamics of a spin-1 condensate in the single spatial mode approximation. Initially, the condensate is in a “ferromagnetic” state with all spins aligned along the y axis and the magnetic field pointing along the z axis. In the course of evolution the spinor condensate undergoes a characteristic change of symmetry, which in a real experiment could be a signature of spin-mixing many-body interactions. The results of our simulations are conveniently visualised within the picture of irreducible tensor operators.     

Landau Damping of Collective Modes in a Disc-Shaped Bose-Einstein Condensate

We investigate the Landau damping of collective modes in an anisotropic Bose Einstein condensate （BEC）, Based on divergence-free analytical solutions for the ground state wavefunction of the condensate and all eigenvalues and eigenfunctions for thermal excited quasiparticles, we make a detailed analytical calculation on coupling matrix elements. We evaluate the Landau damping of a quadrupole collective mode in the BEC with a disc-shaped trap and discuss its dependence on temperature and particle number of the system.     

Stabilities of one-dimensional stationary states of Bose-Einstein condensates

We explore the dynamical stabilities of a quasi-one-dimensional (1D) Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) consisting of fixed N atoms with time-independent external potential. For the stationary states with zero flow density the general solution of the perturbed time evolution equation is constructed, and the stability criterions concerning the initial conditions and system parameters are established. Taking the lattice potential case as an example, the stability and instability regions on the parameter space are found. The results suggest a method for selecting experimental parameters and adjusting initial conditions to suppress the instabilities.     

Dynamics of kicked matter-wave solitons in an optical lattice

We investigate effects of the application of a kick to one-dimensional matter-wave solitons in a self-attractive Bose-Einstein condensate trapped in an optical lattice. The resulting soliton’s dynamics is studied within the framework of the time-dependent nonpolynomial Schrödinger equation. The crossover from the pinning to quasi-free motion crucially depends on the size of the kick, strength of the self-attraction, and parameters of the optical lattice.     

Quantum field theoretical analysis on unstable behavior of Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices

We study the dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates flowing in optical lattices on the basis of quantum field theory. For such a system, a Bose-Einstein condensate shows an unstable behavior which is called the dynamical instability. The unstable system is characterized by the appearance of modes with complex eigenvalues. Expanding the field operator in terms of excitation modes including complex ones, we attempt to diagonalize the unperturbative Hamiltonian and to find its eigenstates. It turns out that although the unperturbed Hamiltonian is not diagonalizable in the conventional bosonic representation the appropriate choice of physical states leads to a consistent formulation. Then we analyze the dynamics of the system in the regime of the linear response theory. Its numerical results are consistent with those given by the discrete nonlinear Schrödinger equation.     

Loschmidt echo near a dynamical phase transition in a Bose-Einstein condensate

We show that the quantum Loschmidt echo can be employed to characterize the dynamical phase transition, from a tunnelling phase to a self-trapping phase, of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a double-well potential. The echo is found to have a relatively fast decay in the transition region, with a Gaussian decay in the self-trapping phase and a stretched exponential decay in the tunnelling phase.     

The stability of a quantized vortex in a dilute Bose gas confined to a toroidal trap

We investigate the stability of a quantized vortex in a weakly interacting Bose gas, trapped in a toroidal container with hard walls. Calculating the excitation spectrum numerically and determining the stability condition by the Landau criterion, we examine the effect of reducing the confinement region of the condensate on the vortex stability. We find that tight confinement of the condensate increases the stabilization of the quantized vortex because an increase in the zero sound velocity due to tight confinement prevents the emergence of the elementary excitation which breaks superfluidity of the Bose system. We also discuss the experimental setup to observe such an effect.     

Controlled Manipulation with a Bose--Einstein Condensates N-Soliton Train under the Influence of Harmonic and Tilted Periodic Potentials

A model of the perturbed complex Toda chain （PCTC） to describe the dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate （BEC） N-soliton train trapped in an applied combined external potential consisting of both a weak harmonic and tilted periodic component is first developed. Using the developed theory, the BEC N-soliton train dynamics is shown to be well approximated by 4N coupled nonlinear differential equations, which describe the fundamental interactions in the system arising from the interplay of amplitude, velocity, centre-of-mass position, and phase. The simplified analytic theory allows for an efficient and convenient method for characterizing the BEC N-soliton train behaviour. It further gives the critical values of the strength of the potential for which one or more localized states can be extracted from a soliton train and demonstrates that the BEC N-soliton train can move selectively from one lattice site to another by simply manipulating the strength of the potential.     

Dynamical instability induced by the zero mode under symmetry breaking external perturbation

A complex eigenvalue in the Bogoliubov–de Gennes equations for a stationary Bose–Einstein condensate in the ultracold atomic system indicates the dynamical instability of the system. We also have the modes with zero eigenvalues for the condensate, called the zero modes, which originate from the spontaneous breakdown of symmetries. Although the zero modes are suppressed in many theoretical analyses, we take account of them in this paper and argue that a zero mode can change into one with a pure imaginary eigenvalue by applying a symmetry breaking external perturbation potential. This emergence of a pure imaginary mode adds a new type of scenario of dynamical instability to that characterized by the complex eigenvalue of the usual excitation modes. For illustration, we deal with two one-dimensional homogeneous Bose–Einstein condensate systems with a single dark soliton under a respective perturbation potential, breaking the invariance under translation, to derive pure imaginary modes.     

Oscillations of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a rapidly contracting circular box

A Bose-Einstein condensate will evolve almost adiabatically if the number of atoms is large enough, even though the trap parameters may be changing rapidly. We demonstrate this by examining a Bose-Einstein condensate in a two-dimensional rapidly contracting circular box. We show that as a result of the contraction the condensate will oscillate about the instantaneous ground state. These oscillations will be small though when the number of atoms is large. Approximate analytic expressions are found for the evolving condensate wavefunction, both before and after the contraction has begun.     

Exact transmission state of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a near-harmonic trap

We introduce a new confining potential which simulates preferably the realistic near-harmonic trap for a quasi-one-dimensional (1D) Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). An exact transmission state of the BEC system is found and the corresponding spatial configurations, metastability, superfluidity and the transport properties are analyzed. Resonant transmission through the potential is predicted from the exact solution.     

Bose-Einstein Condensates in a One-Dimensional Optical Lattice: from Superfluidity to Number-Squeezed States

We study the phase coherence property of Bose-Einstein condensates confined in a one-dimensional optical lattice formed by a standing-wave laser field. The lattice depth is determined using a method of Kapitza-Dirac scattering between a condensate and a short pulse lattice potential. Condensates are then adiabatically loaded into the optical lattice. The phase coherence property of the confined condensates is reflected by the interference patterns of the expanded atomic cloud released from the optical lattice. For weak lattice, nearly all of the atoms stay in a superfluid state. However, as the lattice depth is increased, the phase coherence of the whole condensate sample is gradually lost, which confirms that the sub-condensates in each lattice well have evolved into number-squeezed states.     

Emulation of the evolution of a Bose–Einstein condensate in a time-dependent harmonic trap

We emulate the ground state of a Bose–Einstein condensate in a time-dependent isotropic harmonic trap by constructing analytic simulacra of a transformed wavefunction in the regions around the origin and far from the origin. This transformed wavefunction is obtained through a pseudoconformal transformation and is a function of new spatial and temporal variables, while the simulacra are generalisations of asymptotic solutions of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation and they are matched by requiring continuity not only of the wavefunction and of its slope, but of its curvature as well. The resulting piecewise analytic simulacra coincide almost perfectly with the numerically obtained solutions of the time-dependent nonlinear Schrödinger equation and constitute an easy and accurate analytic method for describing fully the condensate ground state.     

Quadrupole oscillation of a single-vortex Bose-Einstein condensate: evidence for Kelvin modes

We study the two transverse quadrupole modes of a cigar-shaped Bose-Einstein condensate with a single centered vortex. We show that the counterrotating mode is more strongly damped than in the absence of a vortex, whereas the corotating mode is not affected appreciably by the vortex. We interpret this result as a decay of the counterrotating quadrupole mode into two excitations of the vortex line, the so-called Kelvin modes. This is supported by direct observation of the vortex line.