Paper detail

Two-body quench dynamics of harmonically trapped interacting particles

We consider the quantum evolution of a pair of interacting atoms in a three dimensional isotropic trap where the interaction strength is quenched from one value to another. Using exact solutions of the static problem we are able to evaluate time-dependent observables such as the overlap between initial and final states and the expectation value of the separation between the two atoms. In the case where the interaction is quenched from the non-interacting regime to the strongly interacting regime, or vice versa, we are able to obtain analytic results. Examining the overlap between the initial and final states we show that when the interaction is quenched from the non-interacting to strongly interacting regimes the early time dependence dynamics are consistent with theoretical work in the single impurity many-body limit. When the system is quenched from the strongly to non-interacting regime we predict large oscillations in the separation between the two atoms, which arises from a logarithmic divergence due to the zero-range nature of the interaction potential.