Distinguishing mesoscopic quantum superpositions from statistical mixtures in periodically shaken double wells

Abstract

For Bose-Einstein condensates in double wells, N-particle Rabi-like oscillations often seem to be damped. Far from being a decoherence effect, the apparent damping can indicate the emergence of quantum superpositions in the many-particle quantum dynamics. However, in an experiment it would be difficult to distinguish the apparent damping from decoherence effects. The present paper suggests using controlled periodic shaking to quasi-instantaneously switch the sign of an effective Hamiltonian, thus implementing an `echo' technique which distinguishes quantum superpositions from statistical mixtures. The scheme for the effective time-reversal is tested by numerically solving the time-dependent N-particle Schrodinger equation.