Symmetry breaking induced by random fluctuations for Bose-Einstein condensates in a double-well trap

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the study of the dynamics of two weakly-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates confined in a double-well trap and perturbed by random external forces. Energy diffusion due to random forcing allows the system to visit symmetry-breaking states when the number of atoms exceeds a threshold value. The energy distribution evolves to a stationary distribution which depends on the initial state of the condensate only through the total number of atoms. This loss of memory of the initial conditions allows a simple and complete description of the stationary dynamics of the condensate which randomly visits symmetric and symmetry-breaking states.