UC Berkeley

We present path integral ground state (PIGS) quantum Monte Carlo calculations for the ground state (T = 0) properties of repulsively interacting bosons in a three-dimensional external double well potential over a range of interaction strengths and potential parameters. We focus our calculations on ground state number statistics and the one-body density matrix in order to understand the level of squeezing and fragmentation that the system exhibits as a function of interaction strength, and we compare our PIGS results to both a standard and an improved two-mode model and a recently-proposed eight-mode model. In general, the various models agree with the PIGS simulations for weak interactions, but the full quantum Monte Carlo treatment is required to correctly predict the amount of squeezing and fragmentation exhibited for strong interactions. One novel and somewhat surprising result from our simulations involves the relationship between squeezing and interaction strength: rather than a monotonic relationship between these quantities, we find that for certain double well barrier heights the squeezing increases as a function of interaction strength until it reaches a maximum, after which it decreases again. We also see a similar relationship between fragmentation and interaction strength. We propose novel physical mechanisms to account for this behavior.