Beyond mean-field behavior of large Bose-Einstein condensates in double-well potentials

TL;DR

This paper investigates the differences between mean-field and quantum many-body dynamics in large Bose-Einstein condensates within double-well potentials, revealing persistent quantum effects even at large particle numbers.

Contribution

It demonstrates that quantum effects can remain significant in large BECs, challenging the assumption that mean-field behavior dominates as particle number increases.

Findings

Differences between mean-field and quantum dynamics can persist at large particle numbers.

Quantum effects are observable beyond experimentally achievable BEC sizes.

Analytical and numerical methods show persistent quantum signatures in expectation values.

Abstract

For the dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs), differences between mean-field (Gross-Pitaevskii) physics and $N$-particle quantum physics often disappear if the BEC becomes larger and larger. In particular, the timescale for which both dynamics agree should thus become larger if the particle number increases. For BECs in a double-well potential, we find both examples for which this is the case and examples for which differences remain even for huge BECs on experimentally realistic short timescales. By using a combination of numerical and analytical methods, we show that the differences remain visible on the level of expectation values even beyond the largest possible numbers realized experimentally for BECs with ultracold atoms.