An investigation of the role of quantum statistics in interacting atomic and molecular Bose-Einstein condensates

We use numerical integration of coupled differential equations in a truncated Wigner representation to show that the initial quantum state of an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate plays an important role in the process of Raman photoassociation to form a molecular condensate. Comparing the predictions for different initial quantum states, we find that, even when the stochastic prediction for an initial coherent state is close to the Gross-Pitaevskii prediction, other possible states may result in very different dynamics. The mean-field dynamics can be appreciably different, depending on the initial conditions