Fringe patterns of Bose condensates

Abstract

We investigate within the Gross-Pitaevski (GP) theory the formation of fringe patterns between two Bose condensates stored in a double well potential modelling the forces applied to the experimental systems. In the case of repulsive interactions between the atoms, we report the onset of interference structures similar to those observed in the experiments, after the release of the confining potential. Conversely, attractive interactions lead to the collapse of the condensate when the number of particles is larger than a critical value. We show that a bias field introduced in the center of the trap allows the system to avoid the blow-up of the density and gives rise to a periodic behavior of growth and decay of spatial modulations reminiscent of the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam recurrence.