Speaker
Description
We numerically study the quantum dynamics of a bosonic Josephson junction (a Bose-Einstein condensate in a double-well potential) in the context of periodic driving of the tunnel coupling. In particular we examine how caustics, which can dominate the Fock space wavefunction following a sudden quench of the undriven system, are affected as the kicking strength is increased. In the limit of weak tunnelling and low number imbalance, the system maps onto the kicked rotor (an archetype of chaotic dynamics). By varying the strength of the kick quasi-randomly, we are able to realize a regime of "branched flow", a paradigm of wave behaviour in random media relevant to electron flow in conducting materials, radiowave propagation through the interstellar medium, and tsunamis in the ocean.