Multistability and Critical Fluctuation in a Split Bose-Einstein Condenstate

Abstract

By using a two-mode description, we show that there exist the multistability, phase transition and associated critical fluctuations in the macroscopic tunneling process between the halves of a double-well trap containing a Bose-Einstein condenstate. The phase transition that two of the triple stable states and a unstable state merge into one stable state or a reverse process takes place whenever the ratio of the mean field energy per particle to the tunneling energy goes across a critical value of order one. The critical fluctuation phenomenon corresponds to squeezed states for the phase difference between the two wells accompanying with large fluctuations of atom numbers.