Robust Mesoscopic Superposition of Strongly Correlated Ultracold Atoms

Abstract

We propose a scheme to create coherent superpositions of annular flow of strongly-interacting bosonic atoms in a 1D ring trap. The non-rotating ground state is coupled to a vortex state with mesoscopic angular momentum by means of a narrow potential barrier and an applied phase that originates from either rotation or a synthetic magnetic field. We show that superposition states in the Tonks-Girardeau regime are robust against single-particle loss due to the effects of strong correlations. The coupling between the mesoscopically distinct states scales much more favorably with particle number than in schemes relying on weak interactions, thus making particle numbers of hundreds or thousands feasible. Coherent oscillations induced by time variation of parameters may serve as a 'smoking gun' signature for detecting superposition states.

8 pages, 4 figures, extended version includes computational details, to appear in Phys. Rev. A

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Cited by in corpus (7)

• Coherent superposition of current flows in an Atomtronic Quantum Interference Device
• Continuous matrix product states with periodic boundary conditions and an application to atomtronics
• Superfluidity in Bose-Hubbard circuits
• Optimal scaling of persistent currents for interacting bosons on a ring
• Two-mode dipolar bosonic junctions
• Chaos, Metastability and Ergodicity in Bose-Hubbard Superfluid Circuits
• Finite temperature effects in two-mode bosonic Josephson junctions