Asymmetric Tunneling of Bose-Einstein Condensates

ORAL

Abstract

In his celebrated textbook, Quantum Mechanics-Nonrelativistic Theory, Landau argued that, for single particle systems in 1D, tunneling probability remains the same for a particle incident from the left or the right of a barrier regardless of the shape of that potential barrier. We present a proof of this argument, as no rigorous proof currently exists. We then computationally show breaking of the left-right tunneling symmetry for Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) in 1D, modeled by the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. By varying the parameter, g, of inter-particle interaction in the BEC, we demonstrate the transition from symmetric (g=0) to asymmetric tunneling is a threshold phenomenon. Our computations employ experimentally feasible parameters such that these results may be experimentally demonstrated in the near future. We conclude by suggesting applications of the phenomena to design atomtronic diodes, synthetic gauge fields, and black-hole analogues.

*D.L. and D.I.B. are supported by by the W. M. Keck Foundation. D.I.B. are also supported by Army Research Office (ARO) (grant W911NF-19-1-0377, program manager Dr.~James Joseph, and cooperative agreement W911NF-21-2-0139). J.R.W is supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration through a contract with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. This project is supported by the German Space Agency (DLR) with funds provided by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) under Grant No. 50WM1862 (CAL) and 50WM2060 (CARIOQA).D.S. gratefully acknowledges funding by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) through the funding program Photonics Research Germany under contract number 13N14875. D.S., E.M.R. and N.G. acknowledge support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) within the project A05, B07 and B09 of CRC 1227 (DQmat) and under Germany’s Excellence Strategy – EX

–

Presenters

  • Dustin R Lindberg

    • Tulane Univ

Authors

  • Dustin R Lindberg

    • Tulane Univ

  • Naceur Gaaloul

    • Univ Hannover

  • Jason Williams

    • Jet Propulsion Laboratory

  • Dennis Schlippert

    • Univ Hannover

  • Patrick B Boegel

    • Univ Ulm

  • Ernst M Rasel

    • Univ Hannover

  • Denys I Bondar

    • Tulane Univ