Macroscopic Quantum Self Trapping

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

While the tunneling of a particle through classically forbidden barriers can be described by the particle's wave function, the wave function is merely a probability of tunneling. Although various factors can increase the or decrease the probability of tunneling, one can never be certain that tunneling will never occur.

Macroscopic Quantum Self Trapping is a phenomenon known to occur among Bose-Einstein condensates within Josephson junctions. When two condensates are placed in a double potential well, and the phase and population differences are such that the system is in equilibrium, the population difference will remain fixed. This is not to say that tunneling does not occur -- rather, in the event that a particle tunnels through the barrier, another particle tunnels in the opposite direction. Because the identity of individual particles is lost, no tunneling is observed, and the system is considered to remain at rest.

[edit] External links

• Coherent oscillations between two weakly coupled Bose-Einstein Condensates: Josephson effects, π-oscillations, and macroscopic quantum self trapping