The fragmentation of the ground state of a repulsive condensate immersed into a double-trap potential is found to be a general and critical phenomenon. It takes place for a given number of bosons if their scattering length is larger than some critical value or for a given value of the scattering length if the number of bosons is above some critical number. We demonstrate that the geometry of the inner trap determines these critical parameters while the number of the fragments and the fraction of bosons in the various fragments can be manipulated by the outer trap. There is also a maximal number of bosons for which the ground state is fragmented. If this number is exceeded, the fragmented state becomes a very low-lying excited state of the condensate. This maximal number of bosons can be substantially manipulated by varying the inner and outer traps. To study threefold fragmentation we have chosen a potential well with two barriers as the inner trap and embedded in two types of outer ones. A manifold fragmentation is also addressed.

• Received 20 July 2004

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.70.053607