Speaker
Prof.
Juha Javanainen
(University of Connecticut, USA)
Description
We consider a double-well trap containing a BEC, assuming that the numbers of the atoms on both sides of the trap are monitored continuously using light scattering. We develop both an exact quantum mechanical simulation, including back-action from detection of the scattered light, and a classical simulation by expanding the quantum theory as powers in the inverse of the total number of condensate atoms. If the photon counts on the detectors recording the scattered light are frequent enough that the expected oscillations of the atoms between the two traps could be detected, the quantum and classical descriptions give results so similar that in practice it would be difficult to tell them apart experimentally. This holds even for atom numbers so low that the classical approach, essentially a Gross-Pitaevskii type mean field theory, is not expected to apply, provided the quantum mechanical back-action of the measurements is properly included in the classical theory.
