Josephson Oscillations of Two Weakly Coupled Bose-Einstein Condensates

Abstract

A numerical experiment based on a particle number-conserving quantum field theory is performed for two initially independent Bose–Einstein condensates that are coherently coupled at two temperatures. The present model illustrates ab initio that the initial phase of each of the two condensates does not remain random at the Boltzmann equilibrium, but is distributed around integer multiple values of 2π from the interference and thermalization of forward and backward propagating matter waves. The thermalization inside the atomic vapors can be understood as an intrinsic measurement process that defines a temperature for the two condensates and projects the quantum states to an average wave field with zero (relative) phases. Following this approach, focus is put on the original thought experiment of Anderson on whether a Josephson current between two initially separated Bose–Einstein condensates occurs in a deterministic way or not, depending on the initial phase distribution. Quanta 2024; 13: 28–37.