Transistorlike behavior of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a triple-well potential

In the last several years considerable efforts have been devoted to developing Bose-Einstein-condensate-based devices for applications such as fundamental research, precision measurements, and integrated atom optics. Such devices, capable of complex functionality, can be designed from simpler building blocks as is done in microelectronics. One of the most important components of microelectronics is a transistor. We demonstrate that a Bose-Einstein condensate in a three-well potential structure where the tunneling of atoms between two wells is controlled by the population in the third shows behavior similar to that of an electronic field-effect transistor. Namely, it exhibits switching and both absolute and differential gain. The role of quantum fluctuations is analyzed, and estimates of the switching time and parameters for the potential are presented.