Localization of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a bichromatic optical lattice

Abstract

By direct numerical simulation of the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation, we study different aspects of the localization of a noninteracting ideal Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in a one-dimensional bichromatic quasiperiodic optical-lattice potential. Such a quasiperiodic potential, used in a recent experiment on the localization of a BEC [Roati et al., Nature (London) 453, 895 (2008)], can be formed by the superposition of two standing-wave polarized laser beams with different wavelengths. We investigate the effect of the variation of optical amplitudes and wavelengths on the localization of a noninteracting BEC. We also simulate the nonlinear dynamics when a harmonically trapped BEC is suddenly released into a quasiperiodic potential, as done experimentally in a laser speckle potential [Billy et al., Nature (London) 453, 891 (2008)]. We finally study the destruction of the localization in an interacting BEC due to the repulsion generated by a positive scattering length between the bosonic atoms.