Doerte Blume
Aligned dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate in a double-well potential: From cigar-shaped to pancake-shaped
This talk considers a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), which is characterized by long-range and anisotropic dipole-dipole interactions and vanishing s-wave scattering length, in a double-well potential. The properties of this system are investigated as functions of the height of the barrier that splits the harmonic trap into two halves, the number of particles and the aspect ratio, which is defined as the ratio between the axial and longitudinal trapping frequencies. The weak and strong dipole interaction regimes are treated within mean-field theory and within a classical framework, respectively. The mean-field phase diagram consists of three distinct regions: a region where the energetically lowest lying stationary solution
is symmetric, a region where the energetically lowest lying stationary solution is located asymmetrically in one of the wells,
and a region where the dipolar gas is unstable. The stability of the stationary solutions is investigated in detail by studying the dynamical response to a small perturbation and by analyzing the excitation spectrum. These studies reveal unique oscillation frequencies and distinct collapse mechanisms. The classical simulations, applicable when the kinetic energy is negligible, reveal interesting structural rearrangements as a function of the system parameters.
