Tunnelling induced collapse of an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate in a double-well potential

TL;DR

This paper investigates how tunnelling dynamics can induce collapse in an attractive Bose-Einstein condensate within a double-well potential, revealing a critical gradient related to atom number that triggers collapse.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of tunnelling-induced collapse in attractive condensates under time-dependent potentials, highlighting the critical conditions for collapse.

Findings

Collapse occurs at a critical potential gradient.

Collapse is linked to a critical atom number in one well.

Sensitivity of collapse can aid in studying attractive condensates.

Abstract

The stability of a low temperature Bose-Einstein condensate with attractive interactions in one and three dimensional double-well potentials is discussed. In particular, the tunnelling dynamics of a condensate under the influence of a time-dependent potential gradient is investigated. The condensate is shown to collapse at a critical potential gradient which corresponds to a critical number of atoms in one of the two wells. The sensitivity of this tunnelling induced collapse could provide a useful tool in the study of condensates with attractive interactions.