Nonlinear dynamics of Rydberg-dressed Bose-Einstein condensates in a triple-well potential

Abstract

We study nonlinear dynamics of Rydberg-dressed Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) trapped in a triple-well potential in the semiclassical limit. The Rydberg-dressed BECs experience a long-range soft-core interaction, giving rise to strong nearest- and next-nearest-neighbor interactions in the triple-well system. Using mean-field Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) equations, we show that lower branches of the eigenspectra exhibit loops and level crossings when the soft-core interaction is strong. The direct level crossings eliminate the possibility of adiabatic Landau-Zener transitions when tilting of the triple-well potential. We demonstrate that the long-range interaction allows for self-trapping in one, two, or three wells, in a far more controllable manor than BECs with short-range or dipolar interactions. Exact quantum simulations of the three-well Bose-Hubbard model indicate that self-trapping and nonadiabatic transition can be observed with less than a dozen bosons. Our study is relevant to current research into collective excitation and nonlinear dynamics of Rydberg-dressed atoms.