Formation of dynamical Schr\"odinger cats in low-dimensional ultracold attractive Bose gases

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the formation of stable dynamical Schrödinger cat states in a one-dimensional attractive Bose gas when scattered off a potential barrier, revealing a mechanism involving energy transformation.

Contribution

It introduces a novel mechanism for creating stable Schrödinger cat states in ultracold Bose gases through scattering processes, supported by solving the many-boson Schrödinger equation.

Findings

Stable Schrödinger cat states can be formed in 1D attractive Bose gases.

The formation involves energy transfer from kinetic to internal energy.

The process is explained via a detailed quantum dynamical model.

Abstract

Dynamical Schr\"odinger cats can be formed when a one-dimensional attractive Bose-gas cloud is scattered off a potential barrier. Once formed, these objects are stable in time. The phenomenon and its mechanism -- transformation of kinetic energy to internal energy of the scattered atomic cloud -- are obtained by solving the time-dependent many-boson Schr\"odinger equation. Implications are discussed.