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Entangled Dynamics in Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling of Bose-Einstein Condensates
Diego A Alcala1, Joseph A Glick1, Lincoln D Carr1
1Department of Physics, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, Colorado 80401, USA.
Physical Review Letters
|June 10, 2017
Summary
Repulsive interactions accelerate quantum tunneling, while attractive interactions slow it down. Entanglement entropy peaks when half the atoms have escaped, revealing complex many-body dynamics.
Area of Science:
- Quantum mechanics
- Many-body physics
- Condensed matter theory
Background:
- Quantum tunneling is a fundamental process where particles pass through potential barriers.
- In many-body systems, tunneling dynamics become complex due to interactions.
- Entanglement entropy quantifies the quantum correlations within a system.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the effect of inter-particle interactions on quantum tunneling of quasibound states.
- To analyze the dynamics of entanglement entropy during the tunneling process.
- To understand the relationship between interaction strength and tunneling speed.
Main Methods:
- Utilizing the time-evolving block decimation (TEBD) algorithm.
- Simulating the tunneling of a quasibound state in an entangled many-body system.
- Calculating von Neumann entanglement entropy for subsystems.
Main Results:
- Repulsive interactions were found to accelerate tunneling, while attractive interactions decelerate it.
- The escape time exhibits exponential scaling with weak interactions.
- Maximization time of entanglement entropy scales quadratically with system parameters.
- Entanglement entropy reaches its maximum when approximately 50% of the atoms have tunneled.
Conclusions:
- Interactions significantly alter quantum tunneling dynamics in many-body systems.
- Entanglement entropy provides a crucial measure for understanding the non-smooth nature of tunneling.
- The findings necessitate higher-order corrections for stronger interaction regimes.
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