Finite temperature effects in two-mode bosonic Josephson junctions

Abstract

We analyze the effects of the temperature on a bosonic Josephson junction realized with ultracold and dilute atoms in a double-well potential. Starting from the eigenstates of the two-site Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian, we calculate the coherence visibility and the fluctuation of the on-site occupation number and study them as functions of the temperature. We show that, contrary to naive expectations, when the boson-boson interaction is suitably chosen thermal effects can increase the coherence visibility and reduce the on-site number fluctuation.