We analyze the formation of squeezed states in a condensate of ultracold bosonic atoms confined by a double-well potential. The emphasis is set on the dynamical formation of such states from initially coherent many-body quantum states. Two cases are described: the squeezing formation in the evolution of the system around the stable point, and in the short-time evolution in the vicinity of an unstable point. The latter is shown to produce highly squeezed states on very short times. On the basis of a semiclassical approximation to the Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian, we are able to predict the amount of squeezing, its scaling with $N$, and the speed of coherent spin formation with simple analytical formulas which successfully describe the numerical Bose-Hubbard results. This method of producing highly squeezed spin states in systems of ultracold atoms is compared to other standard methods in the literature.

• Received 2 June 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.86.023615