Inflationary preheating dynamics with ultracold atoms

Abstract

We discuss the amplification of loop corrections in quantum many-body systems through dynamical instabilities. As an example, we investigate both analytically and numerically a two-component ultracold atom system in one spatial dimension. The model features a tachyonic instability, which incorporates characteristic aspects of the mechanisms for particle production in early-universe inflaton models. We establish a direct correspondence between measureable macroscopic growth rates for occupation numbers of the ultracold Bose gas and the underlying microscopic processes in terms of Feynman loop diagrams. We analyze several existing ultracold atom setups featuring dynamical instabilities and propose optimized protocols for their experimental realization. We demonstrate that relevant dynamical processes can be enhanced using a seeding procedure for unstable modes and clarify the role of initial quantum fluctuations and the generation of a non-linear secondary stage for the amplification of modes.