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Published on: November 11, 2013
Decay of Loschmidt echo in a Bose-Einstein condensate at a dynamical phase transition
Qiang Zheng1, Wen-ge Wang, Pinquan Qin
1Department of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China.
Abstract:
We study the quantum Loschmidt echo (LE) in a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in a double-well potential. The BEC may undergo a dynamical phase transition between two phases: a tunneling phase and a self-trapping phase. For sufficiently weak perturbation, the LE has Gaussian decay in both phases. While, for relatively strong perturbation, the LE has a Gaussian decay in the self-trapping phase and has a stretched exponential decay in the tunneling phase. This qualitative difference in the decaying law of the LE in the two phases provides a characterization of the dynamical phase transition of the BEC. The semiclassical theory is used to explain the numerically observed behaviors of the LE decay.
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