Quantum Switching at a Mean-Field Instability of a Bose-Einstein Condensate in an Optical Lattice

It is shown that bifurcation of the mean-field dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate can be related to the quantum phase transition of the original many-body system. As an example we explore the intraband tunneling in the two-dimensional optical lattice. Such a system allows for easy control by the lattice depth as well as for macroscopic visualization of the phase transition. The system manifests switching between two self-trapping states or from a self-trapping state to a superposition of the macroscopically populated self-trapping states with a steplike variation of the control parameter about the bifurcation point. We have also observed the magnification of the microscopic difference between the even and odd number of atoms to a macroscopically distinguishable dynamics of the system