| Full text | |
| Author(s): |
Total Authors: 3
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| Affiliation: | [1] Univ Estadual Campinas, Inst Phys Gleb Wataghin, BR-13083970 Campinas, SP - Brazil
Total Affiliations: 1
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| Document type: | Journal article |
| Source: | ANNALS OF PHYSICS; v. 324, n. 9, p. 1837-1846, SEP 2009. |
| Web of Science Citations: | 6 |
| Abstract | |
We reanalyze the non-linear population dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in a double well trap considering a semi-classical approach based on a time dependent variational principle applied to coherent states associated to SU(2) group. Employing a two-mode local approximation and hard sphere type interaction, we show in the Schwinger's pseudo-spin language the occurrence of a fixed point bifurcation that originates a separatrix of motion on a sphere. This separatrix corresponds to the borderline between two dynamical regimes of Josephson oscillations and mesoscopic self-trapping. We also consider the effects of interaction between particles in different wells, known as cross-collisions. Such terms are usually neglected for traps sufficiently far apart, but recently it has been shown that they contribute to the effective tunneling constant with a factor growing linearly with the particle number. This effect changes considerably the effective tunneling of the system for sufficiently large number of trapped atoms, in perfect accord with experimental data. Finally, we identify analytically the transition parameter associated to the bifurcation in the generalized phase space of the model with cross-collision terms, and show how the dynamical regime depends on the initial conditions of the system and the collisional parameters values. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. (AU) | |