Scattering of an attractive Bose-Einstein condensate from a barrier: Formation of quantum superposition states

Scattering in one dimension of an attractive ultracold bosonic cloud from a barrier can lead to the formation of two nonoverlapping clouds. Once formed, the clouds travel with constant velocity, in general different in magnitude from that of the incoming cloud, and do not disperse. The phenomenon and its mechanism-transformation of kinetic energy to internal energy of the scattered cloud-are obtained by solving the time-dependent many-boson Schroumldinger equation. The analysis of the wave function shows that the object formed corresponds to a quantum superposition state of two distinct wave packets traveling through real space.