Controllable Persistent Atom Current of Bose-Einstein Condensates in an Optical Lattice Ring

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that by solving the Gross-Pitaevskii equation for Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices, one can generate and control persistent atom currents using a traveling wave solution, with practical experimental implications.

Contribution

It introduces an exact traveling wave solution in a 1D optical lattice that produces controllable persistent atom currents in Bose-Einstein condensates.

Findings

Persistent atom current can be controlled by barrier height.

A critical condition for generating traveling waves is identified.

Proposed a practical experiment for realization.

Abstract

In this paper the macroscopic quantum states of Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices is studied by solving the periodic Gross-Pitaevskii equation in one-dimensional geometry. It is shown that an exact solution seen to be a travelling wave of excited macroscopic quantum states resultes in a persistent atom current which can be controlled by adjusting of the barrier height of the optical periodic potential. A critical condition to generate the travelling wave is demonstrated and we moreover propose a practical experiment to realize the persistent atom current in a toroidal atom waveguide.