Trojan quasiparticles

Abstract

We argue that a time-periodically driven bosonic Josephson junction supports stable, quasi-particle-like collective response modes which are $N$-particle analogs of the nonspreading Trojan wave packets known from microwave-driven Rydberg atoms. Similar to their single-particle counterparts, these collective modes, dubbed "flotons", are well described by a Floquet-Mathieu approximation, and possess a well-defined discrete set of excitations. In contrast to other, "chaotic" modes of response, the nonheating Trojan modes conform to a mean-field description, and thus may be of particular interest for the more general question under which conditions the reduction of quantum $N$-particle dynamics to a strongly simplified mean-field evolution is feasible. Our reasoning is supported by phase-space portraits which reveal the degree of correspondence beween the $N$-particle dynamics und the mean-field picture in an intuitive manner.