Collective spin tunneling in spinor Bose-Einstein condensates

We investigate a novel aspect of rotational tunneling of the macroscopic spin for multicomponent spinor Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). The Lagrangian is deduced from the multi-component BEC system formalism, and is written in terms of spin coherent states. From the effective Hamiltonian for the collective spin, the tunneling rate is obtained through a functional integral of the spin variable. It is pointed out that the cooperative effect between the Zeeman energy and the anisotropic nature of the spin-dependent inter-atomic interaction plays a key role for occurrence of collective spin tunneling.     

Ground-state properties of interacting two-component Bose gases in a one-dimensional harmonic trap

We study ground-state properties of interacting two-component boson gases in a one-dimensional harmonic trap by using the exact numerical diagonalization method. Based on numerical solutions of many-body Hamiltonians, we calculate the ground-state density distributions in the whole interaction regime for different atomic number ratio, intra- and inter-atomic interactions. For the case with equal intra- and inter-atomic interactions, our results clearly display the evolution of density distributions from a Bose condensate distribution to a Fermi-like distribution with the increase of the repulsive interaction. Particularly, we compare our result in the strong interaction regime to the exact result in the infinitely repulsive limit which can be obtained by a generalized Bose-Fermi mapping. We also discuss the general case with different intra- and inter-atomic interactions and show the rich configurations of the density profiles.     

Dynamics of spinor condensates and stochastic approach

The dynamics of the collective spin for Bose-Einstein condensates with nonlinear interactions, is studied within the framework of the two-component spinor. We discuss the spin resonance when the system is submitted to a periodically-modulated magnetic field at the zero temperature. In this case, the nonlinearity parameter controls the critical change between a localized and a homogeneous spin state. When the temperature is finite – or a random magnetic field is considered – the movement of the collective spin is governed by the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation, from which the complete Fokker-Planck equation is derived. This equation is the essential tool to describe the time-evolution of the probability distribution function for the collective spin. The functional integral approach is used to solve analytically examples of BEC spin behavior in a static magnetic field at finite temperature. We show how such a method can lead effectively to the complete solution of the Fokker-Planck equation for this kind of problems.     

Transition temperatures of the trapped ideal spinor Bose gas

The thermodynamic properties of the trapped ideal spinor Bose gas are studied in details with the constraints of fixed total number of atoms N, and magnetization M. The double transition temperatures, their corresponding corrections due to finite particle number, and the population of each component are investigated. The generalization to the ideal spinor Bose gas of hyperfine quantum number F is also discussed. We propose that the order and disorder parameters to describe the symmetry broken of condensation.     

Exact crossover function for the Casimir force in a non-interacting Bose gas

An exact calculation of the Casimir force for a non-interacting Bose gas confined between two parallel plates is presented. The gas can be free or trapped, parallel to the plates. Depending on the finite size parameter λ/L (λ is the de Bröglie wavelength and L is the separation of the plates) and the density parameter nλ³ (n, the number density), the Casimir force crosses over from a power law to an exponential fall off is clearly seen. Since the Casimir force measurement requires very small values of L, one needs to take into account of the condensation in a finite system.     

Phase separation in the trapped spinor gases with anisotropic spin-spin interaction

We investigate the effect of the anisotropic spin-spin interaction on the ground state density distribution of the one dimensional spin-1 bosonic gases within a modified Gross-Pitaevskii theory both in the weakly interaction regime and in the Tonks-Girardeau (TG) regime. We find that for ferromagnetic spinor gas the phase separation occurs even for weak anisotropy of the spin-spin interaction, which becomes more and more obvious and the component of m_F=0 diminishes as the anisotropy increases. However, no phase separation is found for anti-ferromagnetic spinor gas in both regimes.     

Bose-Einstein condensation and Casimir effect of trapped ideal Bose gas in between two slabs

We study the Bose-Einstein condensation for a 3-d system of ideal Bose gas which is harmonically trapped along two perpendicular directions and is confined in between two slabs along the other perpendicular direction. We calculate the Casimir force between the two slabs for this system of trapped Bose gas. At finite temperatures this force for thermalized photons in between two plates has a classical expression which is independent of ħ. At finite temperatures the Casimir force for our system depends on ħ. For the calculation of Casimir force we consider only the Dirichlet boundary condition. We show that below condensation temperature (T_c) the Casimir force for this non-interacting system decreases with temperature (T) and at , it is independent of temperature. We also discuss the Casimir effect on 3-d highly anisotropic harmonically trapped ideal Bose gas.     

Probing the thermal atoms of a Bose gas through Raman transition

We explore the many body physics of a Bose condensed atom gas at finite temperature through the Raman transition between two hyperfine levels. Unlike the Bragg scattering where the phonon-like nature of the collective excitations has been observed, a different branch of thermal atom excitation is found theoretically in the Raman scattering. This excitation is predicted in the generalized random phase approximation (GRPA) and has a gapped and parabolic dispersion relation. The gap energy results from the exchange interaction and is released during the Raman transition. The scattering rate is determined versus the transition frequency ω and the transferred momentum q and shows the corresponding resonance around this gap. Nevertheless, the Raman scattering process is attenuated by the superfluid part of the gas. The macroscopic wave function of the condensate deforms its shape in order to screen locally the external potential displayed by the Raman light beams. This screening is total for a condensed atom transition in order to prevent the condensate from incoherent scattering. The experimental observation of this result would explain some of the reasons why asuperfluid condensate moves coherentlywithout any friction with its surrounding.     

Atomic density of a harmonically trapped ideal gas near Bose-Einstein transition temperature

We have studied the atomic density of a cloud confined in an isotropic harmonic trap at the vicinity of the Bose-Einstein transition temperature. We show that, for a non-interacting gas and near this temperature, the ground-state density has the same order of magnitude as the excited states density at the centre of the trap. This holds in a range of temperatures where the ground-state population is negligible compared to the total atom number. We compare the exact calculations, available in a harmonic trap, to semi-classical approximations. We show that these latter should include the ground-state contribution to be accurate.     

Density and stability in ultracold dilute boson-fermion mixtures

We analyze in detail recent experiments on ultracold dilute ⁸⁷Rb–⁴⁰K mixtures in Hamburg and in Florence within a mean-field theory. To this end we determine how the stationary bosonic and fermionic density profiles in this mixture depend in the Thomas-Fermi limit on the respective particle numbers. Furthermore, we investigate how the observed stability of the Bose-Fermi mixture with respect to collapse is crucially related to the value of the interspecies s-wave scattering length.     

Wavy fronts in reaction-diffusion systems with cross advection

Using a field-theoretic approach, we systematically generalize the usual semiclassical approximation for a harmonically trapped ideal Bose gas in such a way that its range of applicability is essentially extended. With this we can analytically calculate thermodynamic properties even for small particle numbers. In particular, it now becomes possible to determine the critical temperature as well as the temperature dependence of both heat capacity and condensate fraction in low-dimensional traps, where the standard semiclassical approximation is not even applicable.     

Internal structure of a quantum soliton and classical excitations due to trap opening

We analytically solve two problems that may be useful in the context of the recent observation of matter wave bright solitons in a one-dimensional attractive atomic Bose gas. The first problem is strictly beyond mean field: from the Bethe ansatz solution we extract the internal correlation function of the particle positions in the quantum soliton, that is for a fixed center of mass position. The second problem is solved in the limit of a large number of particles, where the mean field theory is asymptotically correct: it deals with the number of excitations created by the opening of the trap, starting from a pure soliton in a weakly curved harmonic potential.     

Correlation functions in the Non Perturbative Renormalization Group and field expansion

The usual procedure of including a finite number of vertices in Non Perturbative Renormalization Group equations in order to obtain n-point correlation functions at finite momenta is analyzed. This is done by exploiting a general method recently introduced which includes simultaneously all vertices although approximating their momentum dependence. The study is performed using the self-energy of the tridimensional scalar model at criticality. At least in this example, low order truncations miss quantities as the critical exponent η by as much as 60%. However, if one goes to high order truncations the procedure seems to converge rapidly.     

Dephasing in two decoupled one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates and the subexponential decay of the interwell coherence

We provide a simple physical picture of the loss of coherence between two coherently split one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates. The source of the dephasing is identified with nonlinear corrections to the elementary excitation energies in either of the two independent condensates. We retrieve the result by Burkov, Lukin and Demler [Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 200404 (2007)] on the subexponential decay of the coherence ∝exp [-(t/t₀)^2/3] for the large time t, however, the scaling of t₀ differs.     

Finite-well potential in the 3D nonlinear Schrödinger equation: application to Bose-Einstein condensation

Using variational and numerical solutions we show that stationary negative-energy localized (normalizable) bound states can appear in the three-dimensional nonlinear Schr?dinger equation with a finite square-well potential for a range of nonlinearity parameters. Below a critical attractive nonlinearity, the system becomes unstable and experiences collapse. Above a limiting repulsive nonlinearity, the system becomes highly repulsive and cannot be bound. The system also allows nonnormalizable states of infinite norm at positive energies in the continuum. The normalizable negative-energy bound states could be created in BECs and studied in the laboratory with present knowhow.     

Delay times for symmetrized and antisymmetrized quantum tunneling configurations

The quartic confining potential has emerged as a key ingredient to obtain fast rotating vortices in BEC as well as observation of quantum phase transitions in optical lattices. We calculate the critical temperature T_c of bosons at which normal to BEC transition occurs for the quartic confining potential. Further more, we evaluate the effect of finite particle number on T_c and find that ΔT_c/T_c is larger in quartic potential as compared to quadratic potential for number of particles <10⁵. Interestingly, the situation is reversed if the number of particles is 10⁵.     

Spin squeezing in a bimodal condensate: spatial dynamics and particle losses

We propose an analytical method to study the entangled spatial and spin dynamics of interacting bimodal Bose-Einstein condensates. We show that at particular times during the evolution spatial and spin dynamics disentangle and the spin squeezing can be predicted by a simple two-mode model. We calculate the maximum spin squeezing achievable in experimentally relevant situations with Sodium or Rubidium bimodal condensates, including the effect of the dynamics and of one, two and three-body losses.     

Sudden onset of log-periodicity and superdiffusion in non-Markovian random walks with amnestically induced persistence: exact results

We consider strongly interacting boson-boson mixtures on one-dimensional lattices and, by adopting a qualitative mean-field approach, investigate their quantum phases as the interspecies repulsion is increased. In particular, we analyze the low-energy quantum emulsion metastable states occurring at large values of the interspecies interaction, which are expected to prevent the system from reaching its true ground state. We argue a significant decrease in the visibility of the time-of-flight images in the case of these spontaneously disordered states.     

Potential scattering in Dirac field theory

We develop the potential scattering of a spinor within the context of perturbation field theory. As an application, we reproduce, up to second order in the potential, the diffusion results for a potential barrier of quantum mechanics. An immediate consequence is a simple generalization to arbitrary potential forms, a feature not possible in quantum mechanics.     

Monte Carlo wavefunction approach to the dissipative quantum-phase dynamics of two-component Bose-Einstein condensates

We investigate the relaxation effects on the dynamics of two-component dilute gas Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) with relatively different two-body interactions and Josephson couplings between the two components. Three types of relaxation effects, i.e., one- and three-body losses and a pure phase relaxation caused by elastic two-body collision between condensed and noncondensed atoms, are examined on the dynamical behavior of a macroscopic superposition, i.e., Schr?dinger cat state, of two states with atom-number differences between the two components, which is known to be created by the time evolution in certain parameter regimes. Although three-body losses show a relatively large suppression of the revival behavior of Schr?dinger cat state and the Pegg-Barnett phase-difference distribution between the two components for a small-size Schr?dinger cat state, one- and three-body loss effects are not shown to directly depend on the size of Schr?dinger cat state. In contrast, the pure-phase relaxation effects, causing a reduction of phase-difference distribution and then decaying the Schr?dinger cat state, significantly increase with the increase of the size of Schr?dinger cat state. These features suggest that a detection of damped collapse-revival behavior is highly possible for medium-size Schr?dinger cat states in small-size two-component BECs.