Coherent tunneling of collective excitation of Bose-Einstein condensate in a double-well potential

Abstract

The Josephson effect can be observed in a Bose-Einstein condensate in a double-well potential, which is attributed to the tunneling of bosons between two wells. We propose a multi-mode theory to investigate the dynamics of local excitations in a one-dimensional condensate in a double-well potential. We show that the system can be described by two independent two-mode models. The Josephson oscillation and the self-trapping of local collective excitations are predicted analytically and confirmed by numerical simulation.