Phase slippage and self-trapping in a self-induced bosonic Josephson junction

Abstract

A dipolar condensate confined in a toroidal trap constitutes a self-induced Josephson junction when the dipoles are oriented perpendicularly to the trap symmetry axis and the s-wave scattering length is small enough. The ring-shaped double-well potential coming from the anisotropic character of the mean-field dipolar interaction is robust enough to sustain self-trapping dynamics, which takes place when the initial population imbalance between the two wells is large. We show that, in this system, the self-trapping regime is directly related to a vortex-induced phase-slip dynamics. A vortex and antivortex are spontaneously nucleated in the low-density regions before a minimum of the population imbalance is reached and then cross the toroidal section in opposite directions through the junctions. This vortex dynamics yields a phase slip between the two weakly linked condensates causing an inversion of the particle flux. © 2011 American Physical Society.