Chemical-potential standard for atomic Bose-Einstein condensates

TL;DR

This paper proposes a method to establish a chemical potential standard using atomic Bose-Einstein condensates driven by an external periodic perturbation, addressing technical challenges and including dissipation effects.

Contribution

It introduces an experimental procedure for atomic Josephson devices to define a chemical potential standard, considering dissipation and system stability.

Findings

Proposes a method to realize a chemical potential standard with BECs.

Analyzes dissipation effects and system relaxation towards resonance.

Sets parameter limits for stable and accurate measurements.

Abstract

When subject to an external time periodic perturbation of frequency $f$, a Josephson-coupled two-state Bose-Einstein condensate responds with a constant chemical potential difference $\Delta\mu=khf$, where $h$ is Planck's constant and $k$ is an integer. We propose an experimental procedure to produce ac-driven atomic Josephson devices that may be used to define a standard of chemical potential. We investigate how to circumvent some of the specific problems derived from the present lack of advanced atom circuit technology. We include the effect of dissipation due to quasiparticles, which is essential to help the system relax towards the exact Shapiro resonance, and set limits to the range of values which the various physical quantities must have in order to achieve a stable and accurate chemical potential difference between the macroscopic condensates.