Relaxation in an extended bosonic Josephson junction

Abstract

We present a detailed analysis of the relaxation dynamics in an extended bosonic Josephson junction. We show that stochastic classical field simulations using Gross-Pitaevskii equations in three spatial dimensions reproduce the main experimental findings of Pigneur et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 173601 (2018)PRLTAO0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.120.173601]. We give an analytic solution describing the short time evolution through multimode dephasing. For longer times, the observed relaxation to a phase-locked state is caused by nonlinear dynamics beyond the sine-Gordon model, induced by the longitudinal confinement potential and persisting even at zero temperature. Finally, we analyze different experimentally relevant trapping geometries to mitigate these effects. Our results provide the basis for future experimental implementations aiming to study nonlinear and quantum effects of the relaxation in extended bosonic Josephson junctions.