arXiv subjects

P. Schmelcher

Publications and source records attributed to P. Schmelcher.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

arXiv2017

Unraveling the Structure of Ultracold Mesoscopic Molecular Ions

We present an in-depth many-body investigation of the so-called mesoscopic molecular ions that can build-up when an ion is immersed into an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate in one dimension. To this end, we employ the Multi-Layer Multi-Configuration Time-Dependent Hartree method for Mixtures of ultracold bosonic species for solving the underlying many-body Schrödinger equation. This enables us to unravel the actual structure of such massive charged molecules from a microscopic perspective. Laying out their phase diagram with respect to atom number and interatomic interaction strength, we determine the maximal number of atoms bound to the ion and reveal spatial densities and molecular properties. Interestingly, we observe a strong interaction-induced localization, especially for the ion, that we explain by the generation of a large effective mass, similarly to ions in liquid Helium. Finally, we predict the dynamical response of the ion to small perturbations. Our results provide clear evidence for the importance of quantum correlations, as we demonstrate by benchmarking them with wave function ansatz classes employed in the literature.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2017

Dark-Bright Soliton Dynamics Beyond the Mean-Field Approximation

The dynamics of dark-bright solitons beyond the mean-field approximation is investigated. We first examine the case of a single dark-bright soliton and its oscillations within a parabolic trap. Subsequently, we move to the setting of collisions, comparing the mean-field approximation to that involving multiple orbitals in both the dark and the bright component. Fragmentation is present and significantly affects the dynamics, especially in the case of slower solitons and in that of lower atom numbers. It is shown that the presence of fragmentation allows for bipartite entanglement between the distinguishable species. Most importantly the interplay between fragmentation and entanglement leads to the splitting of each of the parent mean-field dark-bright solitons, placed off-center within the parabolic trap, into a fast and a slow daughter solitary wave. The latter process is in direct contrast to the predictions of the mean-field approximation. A variety of excitations including dark-bright solitons in multiple (concurrently populated) orbitals is observed. Dark-antidark states and domain-wall-bright soliton complexes can also be observed to arise spontaneously in the beyond mean-field dynamics.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2017

Ultracold bosonic scattering dynamics off a repulsive barrier: coherence loss at the dimensional crossover

We explore the impact of dimensionality on the scattering of a small bosonic ensemble in an elongated harmonic trap off a centered repulsive barrier, thereby taking particle correlations into account. The loss of coherence as well as the oscillation of the center of mass are studied and we analyze the influence of both particle and spatial correlations. Two different mechanisms of coherence losses in dependence of the aspect ratio are found. For small aspect ratios, loss of coherence between the region close to the barrier and outer regions occurs, due to spatial correlations, and for large aspect ratios, incoherence between the two density fragments of the left and right side of the barrier arises, due to particle correlations. Apart form the decay of the center of mass motion induced by the reflection and transmission, further effects due to the particle and spatial correlations are explored. For tight transversal traps, the amplitude of the center of mass oscillation experiences a weaker damping, which can be traced back to the population of a second natural orbital, and for a weaker transversal confinement, we detect a strong decay, due to the possibility of transferring energy to transversal excited modes. These effects are enhanced if the aspect ratio is integer valued.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2017

Quantum dynamical response of ultracold few boson ensembles in finite optical lattices to multiple interaction quenches

The correlated non-equilibrium quantum dynamics following a multiple interaction quench protocol for few-bosonic ensembles confined in finite optical lattices is investigated. The quenches give rise to an interwell tunneling and excite the cradle and a breathing mode. Several tunneling pathways open during the time interval of increased interactions, while only a few occur when the system is quenched back to its original interaction strength. The cradle mode, however, persists during and in between the quenches, while the breathing mode possesses dinstinct frequencies. The occupation of excited bands is explored in detail revealing a monotonic behavior with increasing quench amplitude and a non-linear dependence on the duration of the application of the quenched interaction strength. Finally, a periodic population transfer between momenta for quenches of increasing interaction is observed, with a power-law frequency dependence on the quench amplitude. Our results open the possibility to dynamically manipulate various excited modes of the bosonic system.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2017

Emitter and absorber assembly for multiple self-dual operation and directional transparency

A recursive scheme for the design of scatterers acting simultaneously as emitters and absorbers, such as lasers and coherent perfect absorbers in optics, at multiple prescribed frequencies is proposed. The approach is based on the assembly of non-Hermitian emitter and absorber units into self-dual emitter-absorber trimers at different composition levels, exploiting the simple structure of the corresponding transfer matrices. In particular, lifting the restriction to parity-time-symmetric setups enables the realization of emitter and absorber action at distinct frequencies and provides flexibility in the choice of realistic parameters. We further show how the same assembled scatterers can be rearranged to produce unidirectional and bidirectional transparency at the selected frequencies. With the design procedure being generically applicable to wave scattering in single-channel settings, we demonstrate it with concrete examples of photonic multilayer setups.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2017

Stability and dynamics of dark-bright soliton bound states away from the integrable limit

The existence, stability, and dynamics of bound pairs of symbiotic matter waves in the form of dark-bright soliton pairs in two-component mixtures of atomic Bose-Einstein condensates is investigated. Motivated by the tunability of the atomic interactions in recent experiments, we explore in detail the impact that changes in the interaction strengths have on these bound pairs by considering significant deviations from the Manakov (integrable) limit. It is found that dark-bright soliton pairs exist as stable configurations in a wide parametric window spanning both the miscible and the immiscible regime of interactions. Outside this parameter interval two unstable regions are identified and are associated with a supercritical and a subcritical pitchfork bifurcation, respectively. Dynamical manifestation of these instabilities gives rise to a redistribution of the bright density between the dark solitons, and also to symmetry-broken stationary states that are mass imbalanced (asymmetric) with respect to their bright soliton counterpart. The long-time dynamics of both the stable and the unstable balanced and imbalanced dark-bright soliton pairs is analyzed.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2016

Dark-bright soliton interactions beyond the integrable limit

In this work we present a systematic theoretical analysis regarding dark-bright solitons and their interactions, motivated by recent advances in atomic two-component repulsively interacting Bose-Einstein condensates. In particular, we study analytically via a two-soliton ansatz adopted within a variational formulation the interaction between two dark-bright solitons in a homogeneous environment beyond the integrable regime, by considering general inter/intra-atomic interaction coefficients. We retrieve the possibility of a fixed point in the case where the bright solitons are out of phase. As the inter-component interaction is increased, we also identify an exponential instability of the two-soliton state, associated with a subcritical pitchfork bifurcation. The latter gives rise to an asymmetric partition of the bright soliton mass and dynamically leads to spontaneous splitting of the bound pair. In the case of the in-phase bright solitons, we explain via parsing the analytical approximations and monitoring the direct dynamics why no such pair is identified, despite its prediction by the variational analysis.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2016

Quench-induced resonant tunneling mechanisms of bosons in an optical lattice with harmonic confinement

The non-equilibrium dynamics of small boson ensembles in a one-dimensional optical lattice is explored upon a sudden quench of an additional harmonic trap from strong to weak confinement. We find that the competition between the initial localization and the repulsive interaction leads to a resonant response of the system for intermediate quench amplitudes, corresponding to avoided crossings in the many-body eigenspectrum with varying final trap frequency. In particular, we show that these avoided crossings can be utilized to prepare the system in a desired state. The dynamical response is shown to depend on both the interaction strength as well as the number of atoms manifesting the many-body nature of the tunneling dynamics.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

Pinned-to-sliding transition and structural crossovers for helically confined charges

We explore the non-equilibrium dissipative dynamics of a system of identical charged particles trapped on a closed helix. The particles are subject to an external force accelerating them along the underlying structure. The effective interactions between the charges induce a coupling of the center-of-mass to the relative motion which in turn gives rise to a pinned-to-sliding transition with increasing magnitude of the external force. In the sliding regime we observe an Ohmic behaviour signified by a constant mobility. Within the same regime a structural transition of the helical particle chain takes place with increasing the helix radius leading to a global change of the crystalline arrangement. The resulting crystal is characterized by the existence of multiple defects whose number increases with the helix radius.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2016

Mode coupling of interaction quenched ultracold few-boson ensembles in periodically driven lattices

The out-of-equilibrium dynamics of interaction quenched finite ultracold bosonic ensembles in periodically driven one-dimensional optical lattices is investigated. It is shown that periodic driving enforces the bosons in the outer wells of the finite lattice to exhibit out-of-phase dipole-like modes, while in the central well the atomic cloud experiences a local breathing mode. The dynamical behavior is investigated with varying driving frequency, revealing a resonant-like behavior of the intra-well dynamics. An interaction quench in the periodically driven lattice gives rise to admixtures of different excitations in the outer wells, an enhanced breathing in the center and an amplification of the tunneling dynamics. We observe then multiple resonances between the inter- and intra-well dynamics at different quench amplitudes, with the position of the resonances being tunable via the driving frequency. Our results pave the way for future investigations on the use of combined driving protocols in order to excite different inter- and intra-well modes and to subsequently control them.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2016

Local equilibria and state transfer of charged classical particles on a helix in an electric field

We explore the effects of a homogeneous external electric field on the static properties and dynamical behavior of two charged particles confined to a helix. In contrast to the field-free setup which provides a separation of the center-of-mass and relative motion, the existence of an external force perpendicular to the helix axis couples the center-of-mass to the relative degree of freedom leading to equilibria with a localized center of mass. By tuning the external field various fixed points are created and/or annihilated through different bifurcation scenarios. We provide a detailed analysis of these bifurcations based on which we demonstrate a robust state transfer between essentially arbitrary equilibrium configurations of the two charges that can be induced by making the external force time-dependent.

physics.class-ph↗

arXiv2016

Beyond mean-field dynamics of ultra-cold bosonic atoms in higher dimensions: facing the challenges with a multi-configurational approach

Exploring the impact of dimensionality on the quantum dynamics of interacting bosons in traps including particle correlations is an interesting but challenging task. Due to the different participating length scales the modelling of the short-range interactions in three dimensions plays a special role. We review different approaches for the latter and elaborate that for multi-configurational computational strategies finite range potentials are adequate resulting in the need of large grids to resolve the relevant length scales. This results in computational challenges which include also the exponential scaling of complexity with the number of atoms. We show that the recently developed ab-initio Multi-Layer Multi-Configurational Time- Dependent Hartee method for Bosons (ML-MCTDHB) [J. Chem. Phys. 139, 134103 (2013)] can face both numerical challenges and present an efficient numerical implementation of ML-MCTDHB in three spatial dimensions, particularly suited to describe the quantum dynamics for elongated traps. The beneficial scaling of our approach is demonstrated by studying the tunnelling dynamics of bosonic ensembles in a double well. Comparing three-dimensional with quasi-one dimensional simulations, we find dimensionality-induced effects in the density. Furthermore, we study the crossover from weak transversal confinement, where a mean-field description of the system is sufficient, towards tight transversal confinement, where particle correlations and beyond mean-field effects are pronounced.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2016

Non-local Lagrangians: a variational approach to non-local conservation laws for wave mechanics

We introduce a class of non-local Lagrangians which allow for the variational derivation of non-local conser- vation laws in a self-consistent manner. The formalism developed here generalizes previous approaches, used in the context of $\mathcal{PT}$ symmetric quantum mechanics and optics in the paraxial approximation in a twofold way: firstly it is valid for a larger set of linear symmetry transforms and secondly it enables the derivation of additional non-local conservation laws for general higher dimensional wave mechanical systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

Fine structure of the exciton electroabsorption in semiconductor superlattices

Wannier-Mott excitons in a semiconductor layered superlattice (SL) of period much smaller than the 2D exciton Bohr radius in the presence of a longitudinal external dc electric field directed parallel to the SL axis are investigated analytically. The exciton states and the optical absorption coefficient are derived in the tight-binding and adiabatic approximations. Strong and weak electric fields providing spatially localized and extended electron and hole states, respectively, are studied. The dependencies of the exciton states and the exciton absorption spectrum on the SL parameters and the electric field strength are presented in an explicit form. We focus on the fine structure of the ground quasi-2D exciton level formed by the series of closely spaced energy levels adjacent for higher frequencies. These levels are related to the adiabatically slow relative exciton longitudinal motion governed by the potential formed by the in-plane exciton state. It is shown that the external electric fields compress the fine structure energy levels, decrease the intensities of the corresponding optical peaks and increase the exciton binding energy. A possible experimental study of the fine structure of the exciton electroabsorption is discussed.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Modulational instability and localized breather modes in the discrete nonlinear Schrödinger equation with helicoidal hopping

We study a one-dimensional discrete nonlinear Schrödinger model with hopping to the first and a selected N-th neighbor, motivated by a helicoidal arrangement of lattice sites. We provide a detailed analysis of the modulational instability properties of this equation, identifying distinctive multi-stage instability cascades due to the helicoidal hopping term. Bistability is a characteristic feature of the intrinsically localized breather modes, and it is shown that information on the stability properties of weakly localized solutions can be inferred from the plane-wave modulational instability results. Based on this argument, we derive analytical estimates of the critical parameters at which the fundamental on-site breather branch of solutions turns unstable. In the limit of large N, these estimates predict the emergence of an effective threshold behavior, which can be viewed as the result of a dimensional crossover to a two-dimensional square lattice.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2016

${\mathcal{PT}}$ symmetry breaking in waveguide arrays with competing loss/gain pairs

We consider a periodic waveguide array whose unit cell consists of a $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric quadrimer with two competing loss/gain parameter pairs which lead to qualitatively different symmetry-broken phases. It is shown that the transitions between the phases are described by a symmetry-adapted nonlocal current which maps the spectral properties to the spatially resolved field, for the lattice as well as for the isolated quadrimer. Its site-average acts like a natural order parameter for the general class of one-dimensional $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric Hamiltonians, vanishing in the unbroken phase and being nonzero in the broken phase. We investigate how the beam dynamics in the array is affected by the presence of competing loss/gain rates in the unit cell, showing that the enriched band structure yields the possibility to control the propagation length before divergence when the system resides in the broken $\mathcal{PT}$ phase.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2016

Invariant current approach to wave propagation in locally symmetric structures

A theory for wave mechanical systems with local inversion and translation symmetries is developed employing the two-dimensional solution space of the stationary Schrödinger equation. The local symmetries of the potential are encoded into corresponding local basis vectors in terms of symmetry-induced two-point invariant currents which map the basis amplitudes between symmetry-related points. A universal wavefunction structure in locally symmetric potentials is revealed, independently of the physical boundary conditions, by using special local bases which are adapted to the existing local symmetries. The local symmetry bases enable efficient computation of spatially resolved wave amplitudes in systems with arbitrary combinations of local inversion and translation symmetries. The approach opens the perspective of a flexible analysis and control of wave localization in structurally complex systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2015

Impact of Many-Body Correlations on the Dynamics of an Ion-Controlled Bosonic Josephson Junction

We investigate an atomic ensemble of interacting bosons trapped in a symmetric double well potential in contact with a single tightly trapped ion which has been recently proposed [R. Gerritsma et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 080402 (2012)] as a source of entanglement between a Bose-Einstein condensate and an ion. Compared to the previous study, the present work aims at performing a detailed and accurate many-body analysis of such combined atomic quantum system by means of the ab-initio multi-configuration time-dependent Hartree method for bosons, which allows to take into account all correlations in the system. The analysis elucidates the importance of quantum correlations in the bosonic ensemble and reveals that entanglement generation between an ion and a condensate is indeed possible, as previously predicted. Moreover, we provide an intuitive picture of the impact of the correlations on the out-of-equilibrium dynamics by employing a natural orbital analysis which we show to be indeed experimentally verifiable.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗