Coherent Quantum Tunneling of Bose-Einstein Condensates in Optical Lattices

Abstract

We study inter-well coherent quantum tunneling of Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC's) in optical lattices. Irrespective of whether the BEC is a superfluid in the whole lattice, it may or may not be a superfluid within each well of the lattice depending on whether the ratio of the well kinetic energy to the interaction energy is small or large. When the bosons in each well are superfluid, we have Josephson tunneling among the wells driven by the phase difference between the superfluids in the different wells. For typical lattice parameters the Josephson tunneling rate will be somewhat enhanced from the naive estimate of (tunneling energy scale)$/\hbar$. Whether it is enhanced or not will depend on lattice parameters, but it can never be zero. When the bosons in each well are not superfluid, there is coherent quantum tunneling of essentially free bosons between the wells. This tunneling is proportional to the boson number difference between the wells.