BOUND STATES OF THE JOSEPHSON DEGREES OF FREEDOM AND TRAP OSCILLATIONS
Manakova L.A.

Received: September 11, 2002

PACS: 03.75.Fi, 05.30.Jp, 32.80.Pj

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It is shown that the interaction of the Josephson degrees of freedom with states of condensate motion can produce their equilibrium bound states. As a result of the appearance of these states, first, the tunneling splitting is significantly increased in double-well trapped condensates. Second, the bound states can realize an absolute minimum of the thermodynamic energy for a sufficiently strong interaction. Transition to the new ground state is a second-order phase transition. The existense of the bound state leads to an equilibrium distortion of the condensate shape. This implies that the Josephson states can be detected by observing the change in the condensate shape.