Time-dependent tunneling of Bose-Einstein condensates

TL;DR

This paper investigates how atomic interactions affect the time-dependent tunneling behavior of Bose-Einstein condensates, revealing nonlinear effects like hysteresis that influence tunneling probabilities and population transfer.

Contribution

It introduces a modified Landau-Zener model incorporating nonlinear interactions to analyze tunneling dynamics in Bose-Einstein condensates.

Findings

Nonlinear hysteresis prevents complete adiabatic population transfer.

Interactions can significantly increase or decrease tunneling probabilities.

Results are relevant for current experimental setups.

Abstract

The influence of atomic interactions on time-dependent tunneling processes of Bose-Einstein condensates is investigated. In a variety of contexts the relevant condensate dynamics can be described by a Landau-Zener equation modified by the appearance of nonlinear contributions. Based on this equation it is discussed how the interactions modify the tunneling probability. In particular, it is shown that for certain parameter values, due to a nonlinear hysteresis effect, complete adiabatic population transfer is impossible however slowly the resonance is crossed. The results also indicate that the interactions can cause significant increase as well as decrease of tunneling probabilities which should be observable in currently feasible experiments.