Interaction-Assisted Quantum Tunneling of a Bose-Einstein Condensate Out of a Single Trapping Well

Shreyas Potnis, Ramon Ramos, Kenji Maeda, Lincoln D. Carr, and Aephraim M. Steinberg
Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 060402 – Published 10 February 2017
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Abstract

We experimentally study tunneling of Bose-condensed Rb87 atoms prepared in a quasibound state and observe a nonexponential decay caused by interatomic interactions. A combination of a magnetic quadrupole trap and a thin 1.3μm barrier created using a blue-detuned sheet of light is used to tailor traps with controllable depth and tunneling rate. The escape dynamics strongly depend on the mean-field energy, which gives rise to three distinct regimes—classical spilling over the barrier, quantum tunneling, and decay dominated by background losses. We show that the tunneling rate depends exponentially on the chemical potential. Our results show good agreement with numerical solutions of the 3D Gross-Pitaevskii equation.

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  • Received 21 April 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.060402

© 2017 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Atomic, Molecular & Optical

Authors & Affiliations

Shreyas Potnis1,*, Ramon Ramos1, Kenji Maeda2, Lincoln D. Carr2, and Aephraim M. Steinberg1,3

  • 1Centre for Quantum Information and Quantum Control and Institute for Optical Sciences, Department of Physics, University of Toronto, 60 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A7, Canada
  • 2Department of Physics, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, Colorado 80401, USA
  • 3Canadian Institute For Advanced Research, 180 Dundas Street West, Toronto, Ontario M5G 1Z8, Canada

  • *spotnis@physics.utoronto.ca

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Issue

Vol. 118, Iss. 6 — 10 February 2017

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