Two-mode effective interaction in a double-well condensate

We investigate the origin of a disagreement between the two-mode model and the exact GrossPitaevskii dynamics applied to double-well systems. In general this model, even in its improved version, predicts a faster dynamics and underestimates the critical population imbalance separating Josephson and self-trapping regimes. We show that the source of this mismatch in the dynamics lies in the value of the on-site interaction energy parameter. Using simplified Thomas-Fermi densities, we find that the on-site energy parameter exhibits a linear dependence on the population imbalance, which is also confirmed by Gross-Pitaevskii simulations. When introducing this dependence in the two-mode equations of motion, we obtain a reduced interaction energy parameter which depends on the dimensionality of the system. The use of this new parameter significantly heals the disagreement in the dynamics and also produces better estimates of the critical imbalance.Fil: Jezek, Dora Marta. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Física de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Capuzzi, Pablo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Física de Buenos Aires; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Física; ArgentinaFil: Cataldo, Horacio Maximo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Física de Buenos Aires; Argentin