Effect of Decoherence on the Dynamics of Bose-Einstein Condensates in a Double-well Potential

Abstract

We study the dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a double-well potential in the mean-field approximation. Decoherence effects are considered by analyzing the couplings of the condensate to environments. Two kinds of coupling are taken into account. With the first kind of coupling dominated, the decoherence can enhance the self-trapping by increasing the damping of the oscillations in the dynamics, while the decoherence from the second kind of condensate-environment coupling leads to spoiling of the quantum tunneling and self-trapping.