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arXiv · 0811.3340

Steering Bose-Einstein condensates despite time symmetry

Dario Poletti·Giuliano Benenti·Giulio Casati·Peter Hanggi·Baowen Li
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Abstract

A Bose-Einstein condensate in an oscillating spatially asymmetric potential is shown to exhibit a directed current for unbiased initial conditions despite time symmetry. This phenomenon occurs only if the interaction between atoms, treated in mean-field approximation, exceeds a critical value. Our findings can be described with a three-mode model (TMM). These TMM results corroborate well with a many-body study over a time scale which increases with increasing atom number. The duration of this time scale probes the validity of the used mean-field approximation.

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Dario Poletti, Giuliano Benenti, Giulio Casati, Peter Hanggi, Baowen Li. 2009-02-16. Steering Bose-Einstein condensates despite time symmetry. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.102.130604

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