Nonlinear phase dynamics in a driven bosonic Josephson junction.

We study the collective dynamics of a driven two-mode Bose-Hubbard model in the Josephson interaction regime. The classical phase space is mixed, with chaotic and regular components, which determine the dynamical nature of the fringe visibility. For a weak off-resonant drive, where the chaotic component is small, the many-body dynamics corresponds to that of a Kapitza pendulum, with the relative phase φ between the condensates playing the role of the pendulum angle. Using a master equation approach we show that the modulation of the intersite potential barrier stabilizes the φ=π "inverted pendulum" coherent state, and protects the fringe visibility.

Phase-diffusion dynamics in weakly coupled bose-einstein condensates.

We study the phase sensitivity of collisional phase diffusion between weakly coupled Bose-Einstein condensates, using a semiclassical picture of the two-mode Bose-Hubbard model. When weak coupling is allowed, zero relative phase locking is attained in the Josephson-Fock transition regime, whereas a pi relative phase is only locked in Rabi-Josephson point. Our analytic semiclassical estimates agree well with the numerical results.