Echoes and revival echoes in systems of anharmonically confined atoms

TL;DR

This paper investigates echoes and revival echoes in weakly anharmonic trapped atoms, revealing novel revival echo phenomena, developing a perturbative model, and analyzing their dependence on perturbation parameters and interactions.

Contribution

The study introduces the concept of revival echoes in quantum systems, providing a theoretical and numerical framework to understand their behavior and dependence on perturbation symmetry and strength.

Findings

Revival echoes occur at predictable times related to system revivals.

Principal revival echoes can be larger than standard echoes.

Atom-atom interactions influence the magnitude and occurrence of echoes.

Abstract

We study echoes and what we call 'revival echoes' for a collection of atoms that are described by a single quantum wavefunction and are confined in a weakly anharmonic trap. The echoes and revival echoes are induced by applying two, successive temporally localized potential perturbations to the confining potential, one at time $t=0$, and a smaller one at time $t=\tau$. Pulse-like responses in the expectation value of position $<x(t)>$ are predicted at $t \approx n\tau$ ($n=2,3,...$) and are particularly evident at $t \approx 2\tau$. A novel result of our study is the finding of 'revival echoes'. Revivals (but not echoes) occur even if the second perturbation is absent. In particular, in the absence of the second perturbation, the response to the first perturbation dies away, but then reassembles, producing a response at revival times $mT_x$ ($m=1,2,...$). Including the second perturbation at $t=\tau$, we find temporally localized responses, revival echoes, both before and after $t\approx mT_x$, e.g., at $t\approx m T_x-n \tau$ (pre-revival echoes) and at $t\approx mT_x+n\tau$, (post-revival echoes), where $m$ and $n$ are $1,2,...$ . Depending on the form of the perturbations, the 'principal' revival echoes at $t \approx T_x \pm \tau$ can be much larger than the echo at $t \approx 2\tau$. We develop a perturbative model for these phenomena, and compare its predictions to the numerical solutions of the time-dependent Schr\"odinger Equation. The scaling of the size of the various echoes and revival echoes as a function of the symmetry and size of the perturbations applied at $t=0$ and $t=\tau$ is investigated. We also study the presence of revivals and revival echoes in higher moments of position, $<x^p (t)>$, $p>1$, and the effect of atom-atom interactions on these phenomena.