We study the dynamics of the relative phase between two Bose-Einstein condensates coupled via collisions and via a Josephson-like coupling. We derive the equations of the motion for the relative phase and the relative number operators from the second quantized Hamiltonian of the system using a quantum field theoretical approach. We distinguish the cases in which the two condensates are in the same trap or in two different traps and study the influence of this difference on the first order correlation function of atomic fields. In identical traps this function does not undergo dephasing. We calculate the dephasing time for the case of different traps.
We analyze Josephson's oscillation of Bose particles in the open (dissipative) Bose-Hubbard dimer. First, we excite the dimer from the vacuum state into a state suitable for observing the oscillation by using a special protocol for external driving. Next, we switch off the driving and observe the oscillation. It is shown that the main mechanism for the decay of Josephson's oscillation is the dephasing due to fluctuating number of particles in open systems. An analytical estimate for the decay time is obtained.
We propose a scheme to achieve a Mach-Zehnder interferometry using a quantized Bose-Josephson junction with negative charging energy. The quantum adiabatic evolution through a dynamical bifurcation is used to accomplish the beam splitting and recombination. The negative charging energy ensures the existence of a path-entangled state which enhances the phase measurement precision to the Heisenberg limit. A feasible detection procedure is also presented. The scheme should be realizable with current technology.
We investigate Bose-Hubbard chains in a central depleted well configuration, with dephasing in the middle well. We look at equilibration of populations, pseudo-entropy, and entanglement measures. Using stochastic integration in the truncated Wigner representation, we find that the initial quantum states of the occupied wells has an influence on the subsequent dynamics, and that with more than three wells, the chains do not reach a full equilibrium, with edge effects becoming important, and the time to reach the steady state becoming longer. The evolutions with and without phase diffusion are q…
We study the mean-field dynamics of a Bose Josephson junction which is dispersively coupled to a single mode of a high-finesse optical cavity. An effective classical Hamiltonian for the Bose Josephson junction is derived and its dynamics is studied in the perspective of phase portrait. It is shown that the strong condensate-field coupling does alter the dynamics of the Bose Josephson junction drastically. The possibility of coherent manipulating and \textsl{in situ} observation of the dynamics of the Bose Josephson junction is discussed.
We investigate the influence of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) on the properties of immersed impurity atoms, which are trapped in an optical lattice. Assuming a weak coupling of the impurity atoms to the BEC, we derive a quantum master equation for the lattice system. In the special case of fixed impurities with two internal states the atoms represent a quantum register and the quantum master equation reproduces the exact evolution of the qubits. We characterise the qubit dephasing which is caused by the interspecies coupling and show that the effect of sub- and superdecoherence is observabl…
Entanglement preparation and signal accumulation are essential for quantum parameter estimation, which pose significant challenges to both theories and experiments. Here, we propose how to utilize chaotic dynamics in a periodically driven Bose-Josephson system for achieving a high-precision measurement beyond the standard quantum limit (SQL). Starting from an initial non-entangled state, the chaotic dynamics generates quantum entanglement and simultaneously encodes the parameter to be estimated. By using suitable chaotic dynamics, the ultimate measurement precision of the estimated parameter c…
We calculate the geometric phase associated with the time evolution of the wave function of a Bose-Einstein condensate system in a double-well trap by using a model for tunneling between the wells. For a cyclic evolution, this phase is shown to be half the solid angle subtended by the evolution of a unit vector whose z component and azimuthal angle are given by the population difference and phase difference between the two condensates. For a non-cyclic evolution an additional phase term arises. We show that the geometric phase can also be obtained by mapping the tunneling equations onto the eq…
A quantum computer that can be constructed based on a superconducting nanocircuits has previously been proposed. We examine the effect of background charge fluctuations on a coupled Josephson charge qubit system used in such a computer. In previous work, the background charge fluctuations were found to be an important dephasing channel for a single Josephson qubit. We investigate the effect of fluctuations in the bias at the charge degeneracy point of a Josephson charge qubit system. Evaluated quantities are gate fidelity and diagonal elements of the qubit's density matrix. The fluctuation lea…
We study the Josephson effect between atomic Bose-Einstein condensates. By drawing on an electrostatic analogy, we derive a semiclassical functional expression for the three-dimensional Josephson coupling energy in terms of the condensate density. Estimates of the capacitive energy and of the Josephson plasma frequency are also given. The effect of dissipation due to the incoherent exchange of normal atoms is analysed. We conclude that coherent Josephson dynamics may already be observable in current experimental systems.
A process tomography based optimization scheme for open quantum systems is used to determine the performance limits of Josephson charge qubits within current experimental means. The qubit is modeled microscopically as an open quantum system taking into account state leakage, as well as environment-induced dephasing based on experimental noise spectra. Within time-optimal control theory, we show that the competing requirements for suppression of state leakage and dephasing can be met by an external control of the effective qubit-environment interaction, yielding minimal gate fidelity losses of …
We investigate the nonlinear dynamics of two coupled annular Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs). For certain values of the coupling strength the nonrotating ground state is unstable with respect to fluctuations in the higher angular momentum modes. The two branched Bogoliubov spectrum exhibits distinct regions of instability enabling one to selectively occupy certain angular momentum modes. For sufficiently long evolution times angular momentum Josephson oscillations spontaneously appear, breaking the initial chiral symmetry of the BECs.
We study many-body quantum coherence and interaction blockade in two Josephson-linked Bose-Einstein condensates. We introduce universal operators for characterizing many-body coherence without limitations on the system symmetry and total particle number $N$. We reproduce the results for both coherence fluctuations and number squeezing in {\em symmetric} systems of large $N$, and reveal several peculiar phenomena that may occur in {\em asymmetric} systems and systems of small $N$. For asymmetric systems, we show that, due to an interplay between asymmetry and inter-particle interaction, the coh…
We consider the non-equilibrium dynamics of a weakly interacting Bose gas tightly confined to a highly elongated double well potential. We use a self-consistent time-dependent Hartree--Fock approximation in combination with a projection of the full three-dimensional theory to several coupled one-dimensional channels. This allows us to model the time-dependent splitting and phase imprinting of a gas initially confined to a single quasi one-dimensional potential well and obtain a microscopic description of the ensuing damped Josephson oscillations.
In a two-mode Bose Josephson junction the dynamics induced by a sudden quench of the tunnel amplitude leads to the periodic formation of entangled states. For instance, squeezed states are formed at short times and macroscopic superpositions of phase states at later times. The two modes of the junction can be viewed as the two arms of an interferometer; use of entangled states allows to perform atom interferometry beyond the classical limit. Decoherence due to the presence of noise degrades the quantum correlations between the atoms, thus reducing phase sensitivity of the interferometer. We co…
I present an overview of the physics of the Josephson effect between Bose condensed systems, with emphasis on the recently achieved BEC's in trapped alkali gases. I focus mostly on those physical phenomena that are likely to be observed only (or more easily) in these novel systems. Thus I omit the discussion of problems which may be viewed as straightforward applications of well known Josephson physics. In particular, I review the external and the internal Josephson effects, and discuss how in the latter case it may be possible to explore the crossover between collective Josephson behavior and…
Josephson junctions are essential ingredients in the superconducting circuits used in many existing quantum technologies. Additionally, ultracold atomic quantum gases have also become essential platforms to study superfluidity. Here, we explore the analogy between superconductivity and superfluidity to present an intriguing effect caused by a thin finite barrier in a quasi-one-dimensional toroidal spinor Bose--Einstein condensate (BEC). In this system, the atomic current density flowing through the edges of the barrier oscillates, such as the electrical current through a Josephson junction in …
We perform a detailed field theoretical study of nonequilibrium Josephson oscillations between interacting Bose-Einstein condensates confined in a finite-size double-well trap. We find that the Josephson junction can sustain multiple undamped Josephson oscillations up to a characteristic time scale $τ_c$ without quasipartcles being excited in the system. This may explain recent related experiments. At larger times the dynamics of the junction is governed by fast Rabi oscillations between the descrete quasiparticle levels. We predict that a selftrapped BEC state will be destroyed by these Rabi …
Squeezed states and macroscopic superpositions of coherent states have been predicted to be generated dynamically in Bose Josephson junctions. We solve exactly the quantum dynamics of such a junction in the presence of a classical noise coupled to the population-imbalance number operator (phase noise), accounting for, for example, the experimentally relevant fluctuations of the magnetic field. We calculate the correction to the decay of the visibility induced by the noise in the non-Markovian regime. Furthermore, we predict that such a noise induces an anomalous rate of decoherence among the c…
We demonstrate that two coupled Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) at zero temperature can be used to realize a qubit which is the counterpart of Josephson charge qubits. The two BEC are weakly coupled and confined in an asymmetric double-well trap. When the "charging energy" of the system is much larger than the Josephson energy and the system is biased near a degeneracy point, the two BEC represent a qubit with two states differing only by one atom. The realization of the BEC qubits in realistic BEC experiments is briefly discussed.
We study how macroscopic superpositions of coherent states produced by the nondissipative dynamics of binary mixtures of ultracold atoms are affected by atom losses. We identify different decoherence scenarios for symmetric or asymmetric loss rates and interaction energies in the two modes. In the symmetric case the quantum coherence in the superposition is lost after a single loss event. By tuning appropriately the energies we show that the superposition can be protected, leading to quantum correlations useful for atom interferometry even after many loss events.
Mach-Zehnder atom interferometry requires hold-time phase-squeezing to attain readout accuracy below the standard quantum limit. This increases its sensitivity to phase-diffusion, restoring shot-noise scaling of the optimal signal-to-noise ratio, $s_o$, in the presence of interactions. The contradiction between the preparations required for readout accuracy and robustness to interactions, is removed by monitoring Rabi-Josephson oscillations instead of relative-phase oscillations during signal acquisition. Optimizing $s_o$ with a Gaussian squeezed input, we find that hold-time number squeezing …
In this work we investigate the quantum dynamics of a model for two single-mode Bose--Einstein condensates which are coupled via Josephson tunneling. Using direct numerical diagonalisation of the Hamiltonian, we compute the time evolution of the expectation value for the relative particle number across a wide range of couplings. Our analysis shows that the system exhibits rich and complex behaviours varying between harmonic and non-harmonic oscillations, particularly around the threshold coupling between the delocalised and self-trapping phases. We show that these behaviours are dependent on b…
In a two-mode Bose-Josephson junction formed by a binary mixture of ultracold atoms, macroscopic superpositions of phase states are produced during the time evolution after a sudden quench to zero of the coupling amplitude. Using quantum trajectories and an exact diagonalization of the master equation, we study the effect of one-, two-, and three-body atom losses on the superpositions by analyzing separately the amount of quantum correlations in each subspace with fixed atom number. The quantum correlations useful for atom interferometry are estimated using the quantum Fisher information. We i…
We study theoretically the dynamics of two weakly-coupled Bose-Josephson junctions, prepared with the same particle number $N$ and Josephson excitation number $ν$ but with different reduced one-particle purity $γ$. A novel entropy oscillation mode is predicted, in which one-particle coherence is transferred between the Bose-Hubbard dimers with no particle or energy transfer. We explain this purity oscillation using a semiclassical picture.
We examine how non-destructive measurements generate spin squeezing in an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a double-well trap. The condensate in each well is monitored using coherent light beams in a Mach-Zehnder configuration that interacts with the atoms through a quantum nondemolition Hamiltonian. We solve the dynamics of the light-atom system using an exact wavefunction approach, in the presence of dephasing noise, which allows us to examine arbitrary interaction times and a general initial state. We find that monitoring the condensate at zero detection current and with identica…
We investigate spin squeezing of a two-mode boson system with a Josephson coupling. An exact relation between the squeezing and the single-particle coherence at the maximal-squeezing time is discovered, which provides a more direct way to measure the squeezing by readout the coherence in atomic interference experiments. We prove explicitly that the strongest squeezing is along the $J_z$ axis, indicating the appearance of atom number-squeezed state. Power laws of the strongest squeezing and the optimal coupling with particle number $N$ are obtained based upon a wide range of numerical simulatio…
We study the dynamics of a two-level impurity embedded in a two-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model at zero temperature from an open quantum system perspective. Results for the decoherence across the whole phase diagram are presented, with a focus on the critical region close to the transition between superfluid and Mott insulator. In particular, we show how the decoherence and the deviation from a Markovian behaviour are sensitive to whether the transition is crossed at commensurate or incommensurate densities. The role of the spectrum of the Bose-Hubbard environment and its non-Gaussian statistic…
We consider a Bose-Josephson junction (BJJ) formed by a binary mixture of ultracold atoms to investigate the manifestation of coherent collective dynamics on ergodicity and quantum scars, unfolding the connection between them. By tuning the inter- and intra-species interaction, we demonstrate a rich variety of Josephson dynamics and transitions between them, which plays a crucial role in controlling the overall ergodic behavior. The signature of underlying classicality is revealed from the entanglement spectrum, which also elucidates the formation of quantum scars of unstable steady states and…
Motivated by recent experiments with Josephson-junction circuits, we analyze the influence of various noise sources on the dynamics of two-level systems at optimal operation points where the linear coupling to low-frequency fluctuations is suppressed. We study the decoherence due to nonlinear (quadratic) coupling, focusing on the experimentally relevant 1/f and Ohmic noise power spectra. For 1/f noise strong higher-order effects influence the evolution.
We investigate the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) scaling of the critical current of Josephson junction dynamics across a barrier potential in a two-dimensional (2D) Bose gas, motivated by recent experiments by Luick \textit{et al.} arXiv:1908.09776. Using classical-field dynamics, we determine the dynamical regimes of this system, as a function of temperature and barrier height. As a central observable we determine the current-phase relation, as a defining property of these regimes. In addition to the ideal junction regime, we find a multimode regime, a second-harmonic regime, and an o…
Why does spontaneous symmetry breaking occur? Why is a state breaking symmetry realized? We explore an idea that measurement selects such a state even if a system is given in a state respecting the symmetry of the system. We point out that the spectrum of the relevant observable is important, and simply apply the projection postulate for quantum measurement. We first show that this approach correctly describes the well-known interference of Bose-Einstein condensates. We then examine a fermionic system and prove that superconducting states with a definite relative phase are selected by the meas…
We investigate the coherent dynamics of a non-interacting Bose-Einstein condensate in a system consisting of two bosonic reservoirs coupled via a spatially localized mode. We describe this system by a two-terminal Fano-Anderson model and investigate analytically the time evolution of observables such as the bosonic Josephson current. In doing so, we find that the Josephson current sensitively depends on the on-site energy of the localized mode. This facilitates to use this setup as a transistor for a Bose-Einstein condensate. We identify two regimes. In one regime, the system exhibits well-beh…
We study the robustness of quantum nondemolition (QND) measurement-induced entanglement between Bose-Einstein Condensates (BECs). We consider an experimental scheme where two BECs are placed in the paths of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer, and a QND interaction creates entanglement between coherent light and the atoms. We analyze the two dominant channels of decoherence, atomic dephasing and photon loss on the entangled states produced by this scheme. We calculate the effect of dephasing on the variance and expectation values of the spin operators, entanglement, and correlation criteria. Our ana…
We present an analytical description of the tunneling dynamics between two coupled Bose-Einstein condensates in the Josephson regime. The model relies on the classical analogy with a rigid pendulum and focuses on two dynamical modes of this system: Josephson oscillations and Macroscopic Quantum Self-Trapping. The analogy is extended to include an energy difference between the two superfluids caused by an asymmetry in the trapping potential. The model is compatible with the mean-field predictions of the two-mode Bose-Hubbard model. It gives new insights on the mean-field model by involving expe…
The intention of this work is twofold, first to present a most simple system capable of simulating the intrinsic bosonic Josephson effect with photons, and second to study various outcomes deriving from inherent or external decoherence. A qubit induces an effective coupling between two externally pumped cavity modes. Without cavity losses and in the dispersive regime, intrinsic Josephson oscillations of photons between the two modes occurs. In this case, contrary to regular Markovian decoherence, the qubit purity shows a Gaussian decay and recurrence of its coherence. Due to intrinsic non-line…
Experiments on the nonequilibrium dynamics of an isolated Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in a magnetic double-well trap exhibit a puzzling divergence: While some show dissipation-free Josephson oscillations, others find strong damping. Such damping in isolated BECs cannot be understood on the level of the coherent Gross-Pitaevskii dynamics. Using the Keldysh functional-integral formalism, we describe the time-dependent system dynamics by means of a multi-mode BEC coupled to fluctuations (single-particle excitations) beyond the Gross-Pitaevskii saddle point. We find that the Josephson oscillati…
It has been proposed that a quantum computer can be constructed based on electron spins in quantum dots or based on a superconducting nanocircuit. During two-qubit operations, the fluctuation of the coupling parameters is a critical factor. One source of such fluctuation is the stirring of the background charges. We focused on the influence of this fluctuation on a coupled spin qubit system. The induced fluctuation in exchange coupling changes the amount of entanglement, fidelity, and purity. In our previous study, the background charge fluctuations were found to be an important channel of dep…
In this paper, we investigate the spin and tunneling dynamics of a spin-orbit-coupled noninteracting Bose-Einstein condensate in a periodically driven non-Hermitian double-well potential. Under high-frequency driving, we obtain the effective time-averaged Hamiltonian by using the standard time-averaging method, and analytically calculate the Floquet quasienergies, revealing that the parity-time (PT)-breaking phase transition appears even for arbitrarily small non-Hermitian parameters when the spin-orbit coupling strength takes half-integer value, irrespective of the values of other parameters …
We discuss the relaxation and dephasing rates that result from the control and the measurement setup itself in experiments on Josephson persistent-current qubits. For control and measurement of the qubit state, the qubit is inductively coupled to electromagnetic circuitry. We show how this system can be mapped on the spin-boson model, and how the spectral density of the bosonic bath can be derived from the electromagnetic impedance that is coupled to the qubit. Part of the electromagnetic environment is a measurement apparatus (DC-SQUID), that is permanently coupled to the single quantum syste…
We propose a method to probe Landau and Beliaev processes in dilute trapped atomic condensates with a multiple state structure using ultraslow light experimental configurations. Under certain conditions, damping rates from these collisional processes are directly proportional to the dephasing rates, making it possible to determine damping rates through measurement of the dephasing. In the ultraslow light systems we consider, Landau decay rates are enhanced at low momenta, which allows one to distinguish between Landau-dominated and Beliaev-dominated regimes at the same temperature. Furthermore…
