Josephson spectroscopy of a dilute Bose-Einstein condensate in a double-well potential

The dc and ac Josephson dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a double-well potential is analyzed in terms of transitions between energy eigenstates. By solving the time-independent and time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equations in one dimension, we identify population transfer associated with level crossings, and determine the critical velocity that characterizes the transition. We test the validity of a nonlinear two-state model, and show that for the experimentally interesting case, where the critical velocity is large, the influence of higher-lying states is important