2007/02/28 by David J. Masiello, William P. Reinhardt
Physics and Astronomy · #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics #cond-mat.other
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreva.76.043612
published as Physical Review A 76, 043612 (2007) · 16 pages, 5 figures
arxiv created 2007/06/26 · openalex publication_date 2007/10/11 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
A time-dependent multiconfigurational self-consistent field theory is presented to describe the many-body dynamics of a gas of identical bosonic atoms confined to an external trapping potential at zero temperature from first principles. A set of generalized evolution equations are developed, through the time-dependent variational principle, which account for the complete and self-consistent coupling between the expansion coefficients of each configuration and the underlying one-body wave functions within a restricted two state Fock space basis that includes the full effects of the condensate's mean field as well as atomic correlation. The resulting dynamical equations are a classical Hamiltonian system and, by construction, form a well-defined initial value problem. They are implemented in an efficient numerical algorithm. An example is presented, highlighting the generality of the theory, in which the ballistic expansion of a fragmented condensate ground state is compared to that of a macroscopic quantum superposition state, taken here to be a highly entangled number state, upon releasing the external trapping potential. Strikingly different many-body matter-wave dynamics emerge in each case, accentuating the role of both atomic correlation and mean-field effects in the two condensate states.