Splitting in the Excitation Spectrum of A Bose-Einstein Condensate Undergoing Strong Rabi Oscillations

The Bloch and dipole oscillations of a Bose Einstein condensate (BEC) in an optical superlattice is investigated. We show that the effective mass increases in an optical superlattice, which leads to localization of the BEC, in accordance with recent experimental observations [16]. In addition, we find that the secondary optical lattice is a useful additional tool to manipulate the dynamics of the atoms.

Bose-Einstein condensation has in the last two decades been observed in cold atomic gases and in solid-state physics quasiparticles, exciton-polaritons and magnons, respectively. The perhaps most widely known example of a bosonic gas, photons in blackbody radiation, however exhibits no Bose-Einstein condensation, because the particle number is not conserved and at low temperatures the photons disappear in the system's walls instead of massively occupying the cavity ground mod...

Employing a general variational method and perturbation theory, we derived explicit solutions for the description of one-dimensional two species Bose-Einstein condensates confined by a harmonic trap potential in an optical lattice. We consider the system of two coupled Gross-Pitaevkii equations (GPE) and derive explicit expressions for the chemical potentials and wavefunctions in terms of the atom-atom interaction parameters and laser intensity. We have compared our results w...

We present a detailed description of the formation of bright solitary waves in optical lattices. To this end, we have considered a ring lattice geometry with large radius. In this case, the ring shape does not have a relevant effect in the local dynamics of the condensate, while offering a realistic set up to implement experiments with conditions usually not available with linear lattices (in particular, to study collisions). Our numerical results suggest that the condensate ...

The realization of artificial gauge fields and spin-orbit coupling for ultra-cold quantum gases promises new insight into paradigm solid state systems. Here we experimentally probe the dispersion relation of a spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensate loaded into a translating optical lattice by observing its dynamical stability, and develop an effective band structure that provides a theoretical understanding of the locations of the band edges. This system presents excitin...

We present our experimental investigations on the subject of dynamical nonlinearity-induced instabilities and of nonlinear Landau-Zener tunneling between two energy bands in a Rubidium Bose-Einstein condensate in an accelerated periodic potential. These two effects may be considered two different regimes (for small and large acceleration) of the same physical system and studied with the same experimental protocol. Nonlinearity introduces an asymmetry in Landau-Zener tunneling...

We discuss coherent atomic oscillations between two weakly coupled Bose-Einstein condensates that are energetically different. The weak link is notionally provided by a laser barrier in a (possibly asymmetric) multi-well trap or by Raman coupling between condensates in different hyperfine levels. The resultant boson Josephson junction dynamics is described by a double-well nonlinear Gross-Pitaevskii equation. On the basis of a new set of Jacobian elliptic function solutions, ...

Double-well systems loaded with one, two, or many quantum particles give rise to intriguing dynamics, ranging from Josephson oscillation to self-trapping. This work presents theoretical and experimental results for two distinct double-well systems, both created using dilute rubidium Bose-Einstein condensates with particular emphasis placed on the role of interaction in the systems. The first is realized by creating an effective two-level system through Raman coupling of hyper...

We discuss the possibility of exponential quantum localization in systems of ultracold bosonic atoms with repulsive interactions in open optical lattices without disorder. We show that exponential localization occurs in the maximally excited state of the lowest energy band. We establish the conditions under which the presence of the upper energy bands can be neglected, determine the successive stages and the quantum phase boundaries at which localization occurs, and discuss s...

The self-trapping phenomenon of Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) in optical lattices is studied extensively by numerically solving the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. Our numerical results not only reproduce the phenomenon that was observed in a recent experiment [Anker {\it et al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 94} (2005)020403], but also find that the self-trapping breaks down at long evolution times, that is, the self-trapping in optical lattices is only temporary. The analysis of our...