Effective two-mode description of a few ultra-cold bosons in a double-well potential

We present a construction of an improved two-mode model for modeling the dynamics of interacting ultra-cold bosons confined in a one-dimensional double well trap. Unlike in the typically used two-mode model based on the lowest single-particle eigenstates of the external potential, the improved model uses a basis of properly chosen effective wave functions originating in the many-body model. Accuracy of the improved model is examined and it is shown that within a certain limit of inter-particle interaction strength, the model recovers an exact evolution of the wells' populations much more closely than the traditional two-mode model. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.