Self trapping of a dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate in a double well

Abstract

We study the Josephson oscillation and self trapping dynamics of a cigar-shaped dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate of $^{52}$Cr atoms polarized along the symmetry axis of an axially-symmetric double-well potential using the numerical solution of a mean-field model, for dominating repulsive contact interaction (large positive scattering length a) over an anisotropic dipolar interaction. Josephson-type oscillation emerges for small and very large number of atoms, whereas self trapping is noted for an intermediate number of atoms. The dipolar interaction pushes the system away from self trapping towards Josephson oscillation. We consider a simple two-mode description for a qualitative understanding of the dynamics.